


Back to the Park

by dmdiane



Category: Jurassic Park - All Media Types, Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Movie(s), Shameless Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-04-05 21:06:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4194909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dmdiane/pseuds/dmdiane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When everything you've worked for falls apart it can break you. After the rescue from the park, Claire Dearing and Owen Grady do their best to survive the fallout. But, their own survival won't be enough. Because unless they go back, they will always be broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Can't resist this 'ship at all. I will try to keep everyone in character. But there are plenty of smexy times for my heroes; the "E" is for real. I'm so sorry about all the head canon in this first chapter. Hope you enjoy.

When he cheekily told her they better ‘stay together, for survival’ he’d no idea, literally no idea, how appallingly true the answer had been.

The offers came rolling in as if what’d happened out there hadn’t broken him, had in fact proven him somehow. The Navy wanted him back, of course. The Animal Planet had seven ideas for series and countless specials in mind. InGen refused to let him quit, like that’s a thing. He quit anyway and told the rest of them no. No, too, to news reporters, paparazzi, 20/20 and Dateline. Over and over again. Politely. Still, no.

She’d been summarily fired, then re-hired ten minutes later when the security footage from the park was released of her running with a flare in front of T-Rex with an interview by Lowery discussing her decision to let T out to take on Indominus. Heroes from the incident are few and far between and they wanted to keep her. She quit, too. She was amazing in the Diane Sawyer interview. She cried for two days afterwards.

~

Owen Grady leaves the building in a phalanx of InGen security staffers. Hot, humid air hits him in tandem with the voices. “Mr. Grady!” “Owen!” “Owen!” The chorus seeking to make him turn his head starts up the moment the doors open. An InGen lawyer type begins shooing the press away, assuring them he has no comment. Into the limo, a quick ride to the InGen building, down into the parking garage, where the press is not allowed. The security team drops him at his bike.

He peels off the suit without regard for standing in the garage in skivvies. His shorts and a t-shirt are in the seat stow of the bike. Claire about died from horrified laughter when she found out he stuffs the suits in the stow. Fact is the sweat alone means he can only wear one once before it sees the drycleaners. Three minutes later he’s gunning the engine down the freeway. He’s still thirty minutes away from her and can’t help worrying.

The legal hearings started last week. In the three months since they left the park, lawsuits have flowed like floodwaters. While Claire is protected from liability by the slimiest kind of corporate insurance, neither of them are protected from testifying. Everything he hates about InGen now stands between them and the howling public. Might as well use it to advantage. The riot of the first two days of her in public returned her home to him a quivering, vomiting, incoherent mess. Owen can’t testify for her, but he cooked up a scheme with the security bozos to get the press off of her by becoming the decoy. He goes to the hearing every morning and leaves every afternoon, while she’s secreted in and out of the building through garage tunnels. Not a picnic for him, either. Just something about being chased, even by land sharks, gets to them both. But, at least he’s not enduring the grueling questioning throughout the day, too. She promises to do the same for him when he’s up. This is their strategy. Split the damage as much as they can, share the burden.

He envisions her stripping off her own suit and neatly hanging it in the closet, her hands shaking. She is magnificent on the stand. The picture of icy calm, her eyes flash like lasers, voice level. The defense strategy is blame the dead. And while Claire agrees Simon was idealistic and reckless she won’t participate in hanging the man’s reputation. It’s harder to avoid blaming Hoskins because there’s no way to defend the man’s dangerous idiocy. If anyone can walk that line, though, it’s Claire. Owen just wishes the costs were not so high. He knows he will find her sitting in the bottom of the shower struggling to breathe.

When he is tightly focused on taking care of her, he feels most like himself, competent, caring, brave. Home. Up the stairs, through the condo. He hears the water running, opens the bathroom door. The room is steamy and he steps in, closes the door. “Claire.” She knows it’s him, but he loves saying her name. No answer.

She’s at the bottom of the shower, soaked through. She didn’t make it out of her suit, or her shoes.

“Awe, Claire.” He climbs into the spray of hot water, sits beside her and pulls her to him. Her gaze finds his and she takes a long deep breath. Her eyes are all the colors of seawater, huge and wet, and too often the only thing he wants to see. “I gotcha.” He murmurs. She nods. The eye contact works best for them both. No matter how far into the panic one of them is, eye contact can anchor. The shrink says it’s what they had out there and they’ve imprinted on each other, the shrink’s also been very careful not to say it’s a good thing. The shrink hasn’t gotten them to visit individually. Because being without her feels like dying and there’s only so much of that a soul can take. She shivers, although the water is scalding, his hands tighten on her arms. She grips the front of his t-shirt, tugs him a few inches closer. The terror in her expression doesn’t ease. What the hell happened in there after he left?

Owen runs through what he recalls of her testimony. He phased out a couple of times, because it’s just hard to hear her talking about sending him into the Indominus enclosure, or the Pterodactyls. But he’s pretty sure he got the gist. Right now, she’s scaring him, and that won’t do. He sucks in air, leans forward, kisses her. “Hey.” Work through this, he thinks.  

He rises to his feet slowly, bringing her with him. Without breaking eye contact he slides her jacket off her shoulders. He unbuttons her blouse, the wet translucent silk clings to her like skin. He drops it to the tile floor. He unzips her skirt and gravity takes it. The cream lace of her bra and panties peels away easily. She stares into him steadily, her breath evening if deepening. His own breathing hitches when he cups her breast, a perfect fit for his hand. He drawfs her, and never more than when she's naked and he’s not. Though the three-inch heels are still in play, a bit of a running joke between them. Her cheeks redden with desire and she’s back, fully present in this moment and here again.

Relief zings through his nerves alongside the truly primitive need to be in her.  The unspoken rule is the one who panicked gets to break eye contact first. So he doesn’t attempt pulling off his shirt or tasting the nipple puckering under his palm. Without looking away she has his pants down, and he steps out of them and out of his shoes. He crowds her against the wall, needing the proximity, wanting to taste, waiting for her. Unlike him, she doesn’t bite. She consumes. She devours. She palms his cock, so erect he hurts. He huffs want without moving. That he can do this while looking into her neverending eyes still steals his breath away. She makes him hungry and crazy, she also makes him patient. Everyone who’s ever seen them together sees he will wait.

Now however, there’s no wait. She puts her hands on his shoulders, lifts a leg over his hip. The heels help for a moment, keeping her tall enough for him to brush her warmth, feel her slick, tease her folds with his cock. Her mouth drops slightly open. “Owen.”

He uses her weight on the wall, an arm around her waist, a hand under her knee and lifts her the remaining inches needed to thrust home. Her eyes widen, pupils blown. They don’t move for a long moment, savoring filling and being filled. He’s only vaguely aware the water has run cold. The feel of her muscles clenching around him is the feeling of being alive. He snaps his hips up, she never looks away, he watches her irises nearly vanish as her pupils expand to swallow him whole. Thoughts blur, he thrusts deep, hard. Her knees grip his ribs. She doesn’t last long, coming apart on a cry that rips fire up through him, into her. Shiny surrender suffuses his body, melts his bones, has him sliding toward the floor amidst the tangle of their limbs. Her eyes drop shut, releasing him. “Thank you.” She whispers. He means to thank her, but what comes out is a growl. She laughs. Her smile is sunshine, lights him up, generates warmth in his chest despite the cold water.

They pull apart, dry off, get dressed in easy camaraderie. The surge of being alive and well Owen shared with Claire sparkles along her skin, sense memory of intense pleasure. The shrink told them yesterday they should try to stop using sex to reconnect with reality. If the poor woman doesn’t know the difference between sex and making love, what good can she be? Claire never uses the term sex for what she has with Owen. Her gaze lingers on him as he ties on his boots. His tennis shoes will be wet for days. He is six foot two inches of hot muscled engine. The word massive comes to mind. She smiles. He has a lion’s majestic laziness, with his easy lope and keen gray green gaze. An alpha with no pack. If she doesn’t stop admiring him she’ll either make love with him again or cry, when what she really needs to do right now is tell him.

“They want you to go back.” She blurts.

Owen grunts. Stills. Looks up at her. Gages something in her expression. He rises to stand, now looking down at her. “They who want me to go back where?” His voice is careful, quiet.

~

It should be the easiest no. After Claire explained the request as it’d been put to her this afternoon after court, he’d paced the living room like a caged predator, lips tight, brow furrowed. Then he’d been sick, retching into the kitchen sink until his head hurt and there was nothing left in him but bile. InGen plans to relocate the animals on Nublar to Sorna with the wild descendants of the first park. Although it made no sense to breed them, it makes no sense to exterminate them either. It also makes no sense to keep spreading dinosaurs from island to island. One is more than plenty. Not that anyone is volunteering to go. They want Owen. And want him badly. However it’s done will require training and wisdom and experience and…. well…. him, apparently.  

He’s back to pacing, has picked up the phone twice to call someone about something without calling. Claire’s not sure what to do for him. Or with him. The pacing continues to wind him up, though, which can’t be good. She can sometimes make him laugh by following him when he paces, but perhaps not now. She touches his arm as he goes by. “Owen.” He stops, his eyes come to hers. There’s so much pain in his expression it hurts her. She lets her hand trail up his arm, across his shoulder to his face. “Maybe I should call the boys?”

No matter what they say to each other, Owen is not without a pack. Claire, Zach and Gray have formed their pack around him. Everything about the incident except their survival infuriates Karen, especially her sons’ defection. Oh she understands, has heard it from the shrink, knows the four of them relied on one another in an extreme survival situation that’s bonded them into some kind of unit. Doesn’t mean Karen has to like it. None of them has yet dreamt of making any kind of progress without consultation in the pack. Owen nods, pulls out his phone and hands it to Claire. She taps up Zach’s phone with little doubt Gray is with him. The boys are inseparable. Twice in three months they’ve simply left home and come to the apartment. No small feat from Wisconsin to California. Claire supposes she should really talk to Karen, too. She knows the boys will be here in the morning if the can’t get here tonight. All four of them desperately want to include Karen in their newly formed family, they just haven’t figured out how.

When Zach answers the phone Claire puts him on speaker. “Sweetie, Owen and I need to talk to you guys. Something’s come up.”

“You’re on speaker, Claire.” Zach’s voice drops low and cool as it does when he’s wary.

“Hi, Aunt Claire.” Gray pipes up.

“Hi, baby.” The smile comes through her voice. She looks to Owen, but he’s still not talking. If anything, he looks even more distressed. She takes a breath and jumps in, explains what’s happening and what InGen has asked.

“Guys, help me say no.” Owen says into the silence following Claire’s exposition. He’s greeted with silence.

“Well, you’re not going anywhere without us.” Zach finally answers.

“I’m not taking you back.” Owen says.

“Then, no.” Gray says.

“Okay.” Claire says. “No.”

“Owen?” Gray.

“Yeah?”

“The animals would fare better on Sorna wouldn’t they?”

“Probably. I don’t know.”

“Isn’t there someone else?”

“Probably. I don’t know.” Owen says again.

“We should probably do some more research and talk again later.” Gray says.

They talk some more about what to consider, drift into touching base about work and school. With promises to talk later via video-call, Claire ends the call and taps up Karen’s number. When she’s done being yelled at by her older sister, she finds Owen in the study on the computer. As she’d hoped the boys have re-grounded him.

~

Owen wakes to Claire’s weeping in a sweat soaked bed. She’s sound asleep. Even sleep meds don’t quell the nightmares. Makes her harder to wake, though. He gets up and lumbers to the bathroom for a wet washcloth. It’s pleasantly cool out of the bed. He sits beside her, caresses her face with the cool cloth, murmurs comfort. She eventually calms, curls into deeper more peaceful sleep. He sighs, sits there watching her sleep. The lengths of time they’ve been apart since the park can still be counted in hours. He can’t leave. He misses his raptors, and who’s he kidding? It was crazier to go in the first place than it would be to return. He’s struggling to refuse going. Lost.

Hands between his knees, his head drops. Blue defended them to the end. Delta may still be alive. Raptors are notoriously hard to kill. Henry Wu is insane. If only he could be sure they really intended to simply introduce the animals to Sorna and leave. And how do you move a mosasaurus anyway? How does he leave them all on Nublar to starve? Not that many survived. It’s not a huge relocation. With Blue’s help. Which she’d only give to him. He sighs. He’s not going back to sleep.

At the bedroom door, he’s not surprised to find Gray in his sleeping bag across the opening. The boys have been here for two weeks and Karen can’t get them to leave. Owen hasn’t tried. He ought to feel guilty about that, but he doesn’t. Life is better with them here. He steps over Gray’s recumbent form and ambles out to check on Zach, who should be asleep on the couch, but isn’t. “Hey, kiddo.”

“Hey.” Zach’s eyes flick up, then back to his tablet. “D’you know the mosasaurus is trapped in that pool?”

“I do.” Owen ruffles Zach’s hair on his way to the recliner. “At least she was the last time any aerial shots were taken, what three weeks ago?”

Zach lifts up on an elbow. “Can you consult with them, do the training and all, and not go?”

Owen gets comfortable in the chair with his laptop. “Don’t know.” He’s fairly sure he could, if he asked. The problem there is if he’s involved, he’s gonna want to go. Silly to try to split hairs over this. He opens his email to see a message from Barry. They’ve asked him to go, too. Of course they have. The email he wants is a reply to his message to Alan Grant. Rumor is the whole kaboodle was willed to the good doctor. If that’s true, even Claire agrees that changes everything. Nothing yet.

Breakfast is a ridiculously fun affair. Owen and Gray make the best pancakes in the world. Claire can’t help admiring her boys. She only feels whole when they are all together. Well, perhaps when Owen is in her to the hilt, but otherwise the four of them make a whole. Zach’s got the hearing transcript up on his tablet. The boys have been going with her everyday, impervious to the onslaught of the media as they all come and go. So much easier for both her and Owen. The unfortunate side-effect is the occasional media assumption Zach and Gray are theirs putting Karen over the edge. Karen, who will be here this weekend, is unhinged by her divorce and what she feels as the loss of her kids. They have to fix this somehow, Claire thinks. But, not right this minute. She grins as Zach asks about an inane detail of the class action suit being mounted against InGen. Kid might turn out to be a lawyer.

Owen flips a cake, tutoring Gray on flipping tactics. Claire can feel in her bones he wants to go back to the park. She managed to live 34 years without him. Now she can’t conceptualize him leaving her side. She doesn’t know if she can go back. When she lets herself imagine it, her head fills with images of people being lifted into the air and speared by nasty beaks.

“I guess Nublar isn’t like the park anymore, huh?” Zach always seems to read her mind. She shrugs. He swipes at the touch screen. “Without all the crowds, they’d have to be far more settled down, I’m sure. T Rex has to have taken care of everything that was injured.”

“You trying to convince me nothing will be looking for snacks if we go there?” Claire asks.

“Maybe.” Zach grins up at her. She shakes her head.

“Your mom’ll never…” Owen is interrupted by Gray.

“Not us. You two.” He points the spatula between Owen and Claire.

“Get the syrup.” Owen says with mock sternness. He catches Claire’s gaze, a question in his eyes. She shrugs. She doesn’t know. Yet. If the boys think it’s doable. She sighs.

~

The meeting with Dr. Grant is the first exhilarating thing that’s happened to them since the park except each other. Alan Grant’s wry smile and twinkling blue eyes are as bewitching in person as they are on TV. He also seems like the first real person they’ve met outside the pack. After a thirty minute meeting with Claire and Owen, Grant - call me Alan, please - tells them he’s also brought Barry, Lowery and Ian Malcolm to his Wyoming ranch for this working weekend.

With a suddenness enough to give a body vertigo they are working again. Every person on the ranch has equally mixed feeling about dinosaurs living and dead. Each one of them chose at some point to stay and take it on the chin out there with nature’s misplaced monsters. Grant’s vision for InGen’s progeny is one of restrained isolation and respect. Ian says it can’t be done while offering useful suggestions and reminding Claire of a grown-up Gray, all math and awe.

InGen owns the five islands of the Muertes Archipelago. Sorna, where the animals from the first park migrated on their own. Nublar, where the skeletons of two parks, seventy two people they know of and lots of dinosaurs rest. Matanceros, Tacano and Pena may also have dinos, no one knows for certain. Grant wants to surrender the Islands to the dinosaurs in some way that makes sense, allows them to create and sustain habitats and a plausible food chain without human intervention. He wants this intervention to be the last that puts humans on the ground. Even so, for as little time as possible.

Grant’s dining room becomes the central meeting space for the group. Maps, video, research files and reports from Henry Wu are are their fingertips for the first time. The group digs in with relish. Despite being the only woman on the team as well as the recipient of much heckling, Claire is the only manager among them. Three days into meetings it’s clear she’s the organizational leader of the group.

On day four, Claire skypes the boys into the meeting to discuss options for mosasaurus , who cannot realistically be loosed in the oceans, but needs some way of fending for herself. Grant originally planned for four days, Claire stretches that to six to allow for a deep dive into the pedigree of all the animals InGen created. Owen and Barry, with Gray on skype, begin the painstaking process of sorting out behaviors, guessing at potential diets and habitats, estimating territorial needs and mating possibilities. Clearly the animals on Sorna overcame the female only prerogative within a generation. It seems likely the others will follow suit. At the dining table conferences, Owen cedes to the others, choosing to sit in the back with Barry and listen. Claire can more than hold her own with the professors, interrupting with questions and logistics, planning next steps. She keeps immaculate notes for two day until Lowery takes over so she can guide discussions. As they work, Lowery meticulously catalogues and organizes materials, videos, notes. From piles of data to what amounts to a library, information gets easier and easier to parse.

The ranch, nestled at the foot of the Big Horns, boasts several guest houses, a creek, horses and lots and lots of sheep. Grant’s four Australian Shepherds work the sheep with Grant’s foreman, but quickly gravitate toward Owen during their off hours. Owen can always think up something for them to do on a trail ride, or a long walk. Claire’s not surprised to find him reading with two dogs under foot, one on guard and the other getting an absent minded cuddle. The dogs know who’s in charge.

~

Owen wakes to Claire climbing up him from under the covers, her hands and mouth doing amazing things. “Um.”

“Shhh.” She straddles him, taking him in with a long wet slide. Gorgeous over him, silvery streetlight touching her through the curtains. His sense tunnel until there’s nothing but her, rhythm, squeeze, heaven. He sits, an entirely new angle that makes both of them gasp. He cradles her face in his hands and kisses her. Hard. Drinks her. She shudders in his hands, so close. What in the hell has she been up to before waking him? She quakes apart, and he’s just getting started. He rocks her through her beautiful, desperate orgasm, his own pleasure mounting. He’s typically gentle with her, his most greedy, primal urges tamped way back. His enjoyment in pleasing her, filling her, completing them. At the moment though, she’s clearly taken care of herself, and he wants. As she comes down he slips away from her, earning a whispered curse. He replaces his cock with his hand and mouth, growling at the sweet musk of her. She scrapes nails over his scalp, lies back, her hips rising to him. Mine, he thinks, as thought shifts to motion. He lifts her knee and plunges into her, covering her mouth and swallowing her moan. She takes him deep, nipping his bottom lip in encouragement. He buries himself hard in her, bottoming out against her cervix, branding her with his cock, hands, and mouth. The satisfying slap of skin on skin drives him faster and deeper until she’s gasping and lightning tears through him, closing his eyes, throwing his head back in pure release. He comes in a long lingering spurt of delight, his hips slowing to a rock, breaths harsh and ragged from the effort. For a moment he’s spinning, then she’s there, kissing him, wound tightly around him with arms and legs. There are reasons it’s called falling. He doesn’t have any idea where they are, what they are. Just her. Just them. He nuzzles his face deep into her neck, breathes in the wonderful smells of her shampoo, soap, sex, detergent, all things he associates with her.

Claire frames his face, smiles, kisses his mouth. “Love you.” Very soft. Something he knows but has never heard. It goes straight to his heart. He returns the kiss.

“Love you.” His is a whisper, gruff, a huff against her mouth. Because they’re going back to the park. Because unless they go back, they will alway be broken.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive mistakes and such - fast typing and no beta. But fun, in which we get a bunch of people close to dinosaurs again.

Four suits on the way to the cleaners, one hanging in the closet for tomorrow. Owen Grady sends a text to InGen security, one more suit required. Five is too much of a time scramble. Always have back-up when you can. Someone, he suspects Claire and Alan, has taken him off the witness list. Claire’s testimony ends next week. He feels considerably lighter knowing he doesn’t have to go through it, but guilty she didn’t get off of the hot seat. She’s accepted that as the park director there’s no out for her. He, on the other hand, was there to train the raptors, and in the end his raptors saved the day. She’s too gentle with him to mention the trouble he’s having holding it together. Instead, she’s arranged for them to spend the weekend in Wyoming.

With Alan in Wyoming, Ian in Berkeley and the rest of them in San Diego communications are slow. Especially since neither Alan or Ian have quite mastered the spontaneous videochat, or any chat. Claire and Lowery took over the study in the spare bedroom as the team office. There’s plenty of space at InGen, but no one has the stomach for clocking in there every day. Alan makes up for his absolute inability with technology with the equivalent of statesmanship. He’s working on a plan to get them all hired at the University of Wyoming on his research staff.

Ousted from the study, Owen works on the dining table, uses the sliding glass door as a giant dry erase board. He’s got diagrams of each species up, pedigree, possible ‘borrowed’ traits, observed behaviors, dietary needs. An adjacent wall holds large maps of the islands. He’s using post-it flags to begin roughing out possible habitats. It all feels a bit like Churchill and company after the war, divvying up the middle east without any regard for tribes or customs. What the hell do any of them really know how these creatures would like to live? Gives him headaches.

For a guy with degrees in zoology, biology, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology he’s ridiculously dependent on an eleven-year-old genius in Wisconsin. Truth is, Gray gives him endless buckets of faith and hope. Things Owen seems unable to generate on his own these days. The combination of left over terror from the incident and studying the animals in this dry academic way creates a jumble in his head akin to madness. The shrink seems to think he’s improving. The reality is he’s falling apart.

He clicks off the call from Claire, hands shaking. There it is. His pulse quickens so fast the rushing in his ears blocks everything out. She’s leaving and he’s dying. His chest slams shut, his stomach heaves. He’s not even gonna make it to the kitchen sink. He cannot believe he’s panicked she’s working late. How’ve the words ‘won’t be back for another coupla hours’ created this vise around his gut, sent him out the back door where he’s vomiting on the grass. The tunnel vision narrows his sight to a tiny clump of green blades, hauls him down to his hands and knees, guts cramping. Sobs wrench up from who knows where. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Gotta breathe. Can’t. Can’t.

Lowery learned the hard way helping gets him punched. And Grady punches verrrrrrry hard. He heard the back door slam open from the office. When the vomiting began outside Lowery called her, she’s coming. She’s still twenty minutes away though and the giant collapsed on the grass out back is about to… nope, already has lost consciousness. Jesus. Lowery’s got strict instructions from Claire to make sure Grady doesn’t aspirate vomit and die and strict instructions from Grady to stay the hell away. He’s not entirely sure which one of them he’s more afraid of. He does not want to see Grady hurt, though. He steels himself and eases out the door. The giant is motionless, curled on his side. Not in imminent danger of anything but waking. Okay then, he can clean up and he can keep watch. Which he does really well. He grabs the hose and rinses the vomit and bile into the dirt, careful not to get Grady wet, at all. He re-wraps the hose. Checks the man is still down. Yep. Lowery drops to a paving stone near the door, shoves his glasses up, makes sure he can hear Grady breathing. Check. He can watch.

Owen regains awareness to the sound of traffic and the scratch of grass under his arm. He opens his eyes. Lowery sits on the ground about 50 paces away. Fuck. “Sorry about that, man.”

Lowery startles to the words. “Uh.” The giant hasn’t moved. Lowery leans forward very slightly. “Um.” Laser bright green eyes pin him. “Sorry, didn’t…”

Owen uncurls like a big cat, rolls to sit, glancing around. “D’you clean up? You don’t…”

Lowery bounces to his feet. “I am so sorry, man.”

Owen swings a searching gaze back to the other man. “Cut it out. I’m not gonna hurt you when I’m in my right mind. Easy, dude. I just meant you don’t need to clean up.”

“Um. Don’t mind.” Lowery’s at least trying to calm down.

Owen smiles. “‘Preciate it.” He scrambles to his feet. “You have ‘em? The panic attacks?” He runs a hand through his hair. His head pounds, sour mouth, ugh. He sighs.

“No.” Lowery shakes his head. “But the agoraphobia is intense. I don’t really do the outside.”

Owen thought that was about the guy being a tech nerd. Interesting. Makes sense. Control room. Yeah. He stretches his shoulders, flexes, utters a long soft string of curses. “Would you mind taking off? I can use some…”

Lowery shrugs. “I… uh. She’d kill me if I…” He glances back over his shoulder to the house.

“You called her?”

“Yeah, I uh…”

Owen raises a placating hand. “No, no, you’re right. Listen, I’m just gonna get cleaned up and hit the sack.” Exhaustion claims his body. He feels as if he could fall over again any second. Though without the crush of panic. Fuck. He lurches through the door. He leans heavily on the bathroom counter and rinses out his mouth twice. Brushes his teeth, twice. His reflection in the mirror glares back, pale, haggard, a little scary. Fuck. Work through this. He searches his reflection for some instructions. He can master this. Gray says numbers help. “Twelve times thirteen is one fifty six. Twelve times fourteen is one sixty eight.” Owen mutters on the way to bed.

Claire flies in the condo, kicking off her shoes at the door, drops her jacket on the couch with her bag. Lowery sticks his head out the office door. “Where?”

He nods at the bedroom door. “I’ll just…” The bedroom door opens and closes in a swirl of silver and green fabric and a flash of red hair. Lowery blinks. “... go on home now.”

The bedroom is utterly dark. “Owen.” He’s got the blackout shades drawn, which means something hurts. “Hey.” Claire continues to silently berate herself, wants to throw herself onto him, unsure of what hurts, she climbs on the foot of the bed and scrambles across the mattress until she reaches him. His skin is cool and clammy, she burrows into him her hands seeking to see him in the dark, tracing over his chest, neck, face, hair, her fingers curl behind his ears. She feels his breath on her face, kisses him. “Hey.” He doesn’t respond and his stillness crushes her. “I’m sorry, so sorry.” Tears threaten at the back of her throat. His arms come up around her, press her close, his mouth finds her neck. The hesitation about kills her. “Gods, so sorry.” She cradles his head against her chest.

“Wasn’t you.” He says, voice muffled in her shirt.

The press of his fingers in her back, his cling conflicts with his words. She knows they can’t do six hours apart. Three is okay and she hadn’t called until four hours had passed. She’d lost track of time on the phone with Alan, had absently indicated she’d be away longer. Hadn’t listened carefully enough. She hadn’t done the math until Lowery called. She contracts around Owen, tightening hands, arms, legs, tucking around him. If he’d done it to her. She has no idea how she’d weather him being gone. What if he’d been the one to break faith, to lose track of time. The horror fills her chest, catches in her throat, shakes her bones. She needs to see him. Gods, what a mess. She presses her nose into his hair. She needs to get closer. “Forgive me.”

The plea in Claire’s voice snags Owens attention from simply revelling in her presence. What the hell is she talking about? He reaches for the bedside lamp. In the dim pool of gold light he meets her eyes. He’s never seen this particular flavor of fear here before. Auburn sheaves of hair everywhere, she’s trembling.

“Never leave me.” She whispers, scooting up him, pressing closer, staring.

“Never.” He says.

“Forgive me.” She repeats, the fire in her gaze intensifies.

“Every time.” He has no idea what she’s asking, but whatever she wants he’ll give. She’s shaking in his arms and he has no idea why. He feels like someone poured lead through his veins. Mess. He closes his eyes.

“No.” She says. “Don’t go.”

He open his eyes again to find hers filled with tears. Whatever’s happening makes him dizzy. The tears he choked back earlier return in force. She kisses him, tasting of salt and fear. Her fingers wipe his cheeks, trail up into his hair. Salt, fear, and heaven. He kisses her back, taking the kiss deep, feeling the sobs in her chest and belly, hers or his, he doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. She smells of vanilla and musk. He grips her shirt in his fists and hauls her onto him, wants to feel her weight. She holds his gaze and the corner of her mouth lifts. There it is. The only real thing he knows. He growls, glimpses her smile widening on his way up to her. Into her. Home.

Owen’s mouth crashing into Claire’s is the first reassurance she accepts. She gives entrance to her mouth with a sigh of mingled relief and pleasure. He has her shoulders and comes to sit with her in his lap. She splays her hands on his broad chest, the light dusting of hair across his pecs and belly, she grazes fingers under the band of his jockeys. The rumble in his chest goes straight to her center. Closer. She simply needs closer. She arches against him and he rips her blouse at the back seam. His breath hitches with surprise. She giggles, peels the remains of her blouse off over her head. She reaches behind and unhooks her bra, she needs to feel skin on skin. Needs closer now. Strong fingers and lips on her breast reverberate through her, desire pooling at her core. Heat flashes up from her belly, the uncontrolled blush making him grin up at her, his want clear in his eyes. Those eyes anchoring her here. Holding her safe. Holding her closer. She wants him now, more than anything. She raises up on her knees and shifts to wriggle out of skirt and panties, takes his hand and presses his palm to her center. His hand closes on her, fingers caressing between her folds, eliciting a moan. She tightens her grip on his shoulders, sparkles of pleasure circling in her belly. He leans her back into the bed, covers her, sweet weight and friction, low growl near her ear. When he thrusts up into her she spins away with the deep satisfaction of him filling her to the brim. More. She lifts her legs to rest her feet on his hips and take him all the way down. Closer. The quickening rhythm and grind send spirals of bliss through her until she spins asunder, sparkles apart. He’s right with her, following her up, up and through, spilling heat and affection into her depths.

She drifts back to awareness slowly, buries her nose in his armpit, giggles. She grips him, not sure quite what she’s got hold of. She tugs and wriggles, wants to be inside him, is jealous he can be in her and she can’t…

“Where are you going?” He says.

“Want to be in you.”

“Well, come’ere.” He slides out of her, curls around her, tucks her into his embraces until he’s everywhere, big and heavy and true. She sighs her contentment. He chuckles. This is so much like the first few days on the mainland. She’s set them back months of progress. Regret stirs around her thoughts. She folds further into the curve of him.

~

“You guys should move here.” Zach tosses Claire the pencil she requested.

She catches the pencil neatly, lifts her brows at him.

Zach shrugs. His line of sight drifts past her out the enormous cathedral windows to where Owen lies in the grass, four dogs each with a nose on some part of him. “It’d be easier to visit you up here.” He adds.

Claire follows Zach’s gaze. What Zach didn’t say aloud is they’re better here on Alan’s ranch than they are in San Diego. Karen called the day after the worst break asking if everything was alright. Zach picked up something in their voices and was demanding to travel to San Diego. Truth is everything’s better when they are all together. The past three weeks she and Owen have remained within line of sight of each other. Being back at Alan's for the second time this month still hasn’t alleviated that, which she’s kinda grateful about if she’s completely honest with herself. His gaze makes her feel real. Real is good.

“Helps to see each other, you know.” Zach turns back to the chart spread on the table. Claire ruffles his hair.

Gray darts around the corner and opens the refrigerator, he plucks two cans of tomato juice from the bottom drawer and disappears back into the den. He’s working with Ian on policies for staying responsive to the unexpected or some such complexity theory based something. Zach follows him with a question. Claire’s gaze returns to the windows and Owen looks back, steady and sure. He’s beautiful in the sunshine, relaxed and inviting. She bites her bottom lip. He grins. If she could make a living just looking at him. Of course, the final settlement from InGen… her train of thought is interrupted by Alan strolling up and starting a conversation with Owen.

Claire contents herself with watching the two men talk. Alan, a spry 67, hunkers back on his heels, Owen props up to sit cross-legged, sending the dogs in search of a new pillow. The conversation is serious, progressing slowly through long comfortable looking silences. Owen must’ve told Alan they’ve gotten as far as they can without some kind of real life reconnaissance. No one’s as much as done a fly by of the islands in well over six weeks, and the few that’d happened since the incident were flown by either the military or the media. No one with a lick of sense about the animals or the environment has been anywhere near it since they left. She’d listened, chin on his chest, while Owen talked through the issues long into the night. She’s been looking at the facilities available on the islands, both long deteriorated and new, assessing for a potential temporary stronghold. She worries she and Owen lean towards Nublar just because they’ve been there and they know it, not because it’s safer. And Blue. She chews on the pencil and glances at the map in front of her. Better, they could bunk somewhere in civilization and do the surveying daily via chopper. Maybe. She peers at the map for the closest port city.

Alan, Ian and Gray don’t think a fly by of the islands is any safer than putting down. Of course, the last time Alan was on one of the islands that team crashed their plane less than two hours into the expedition. Ian and Gray just don’t think the Islands are predictable. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst and stay flexible seems to be Ian’s mantra and Gray worships Ian. Claire leans on her elbows and steeples her hands, resting her chin.

With Alan’s permission Owen told the shrink about the project. It seemed prudent given the general set back in their ability to separate. Their inability to separate is what the shrink would say. The shrink’s face was such a study when she realized they were going back. It was almost funny. Claire’s eyes drift back to Owen and she waits until his glance meets her gaze. When their gaze locks, Alan looks over his shoulder, following Owen’s line of sight. Alan waves for Claire to come out.

“We’ve got a pilot.” Owen says, offering a hand to Claire when she reaches them.

She settles into his lap and looks at Alan. “Really?”

“Tim Murphy.” Alan says. “Talked with him last night. He flies for the Forest Service Firefighters. He’s gonna take a leave and join the team. He’ll be here tomorrow.”

“So we need to buy a plane.” Claire adds this task to her mental checklist. “How long has it been since he’s been to the Island?” Claire has no mental picture of Tim Murphy, though she certainly knows he’s John Hammond’s grandson and was on the Island long before a theme park got off the ground. Alan grins at Owen conspiratorially. Claire turns to Owen. “What? What'd I miss?”

“Nothing. You haven’t missed a thing.” He points a blade of grass at Alan. “He just told me, Murphy and his sister visited Jurassic World last year.”

“No they most certainly did not.” Claire begins. She surely would’ve known if John Hammond’s grandchildren had been in her park. Although, if they just bought a couple of tickets and caught a few rides no one would be the wiser. She narrows her eyes back at Alan. “Why wouldn’t they say something, for goodness sake? We would’ve given them a VIP tour and…”

Alan tilts his head and nods. “That’s probably why.”

“Wait, Tim’s a firefighter pilot?” She’s confused.

“Turns out he was a Navy pilot and now he works for the Forest Service.” Owen says. “We were just talking about tracking down Eric Kirby and Billy Brenden, to round out our Sorna expedition. Brenden teaches at the U up in Vancouver. Kirby run’s an outfitter business in my very own home town over in Sheridan.” Owen shrugs. He grew up not far from here on the other side of the Bighorn mountains.

Owen mentions driving over to meet Eric. There are a lot of reasons in addition to meeting Eric Kirby to drive over. His Aunt and Uncle would be thrilled to see him, even more thrilled to meet Claire. But, it’d been hard after his parents died. Owen was oldest of five brothers, oldest in fact of nine kids when you counted the cousins, all between the ages of fourteen and eight. He’d felt terribly responsible for his brothers. He stills feel the debt to his Aunt and Uncle for providing shelter and love, when he was too young to do either very well.  

Claire blinks. “Well.” She’s starting to feel better about this. Probably foolish. Undoubtedly foolish. She gives her head a quick shake as if to shake some sense back in. “I better get to work, then. We can’t do this without a strong base on the mainland. Seriously.” She explains her idea of maintaining the equivalent of a base camp in Costa Rica. Both men run with that idea, making suggestions about communications and research.

“Aunt Claire! Owen!” Gray tears across the yard at a run. “It happened!” He shouts, arms flying. Behind him, Ian and Zach walk toward them. Gray arrives in a flurry of arms and legs. “Owen. Owen. There’ve been Pteranodon sightings on the western shores of Costa Rica and Panama. Pteranodons!”

~

Three hours and a trip through the corner of the Bighorn National Forest has Owen and Claire driving down Main Street, Sheridan Wyoming, well before noon. Owen hasn’t been back in maybe six years. Not that much has changed. A couple new boutiques. He tucks the car into a space in front of Dan’s Western Wear.

Claire hops out of the car, looking up and down the street. She points to Bighorn Outfitters across the street. They’re scheduled to meet Eric Kirby just about now. Owen climbs into the sunshine and stretches. He’s sure he’s been in this store before, wonders how long Kirby has owned it. Wierd. Small world, Claire would say. Has said.

Eric Kirby greets them at the door of a well stocked outdoors shop. Snow skis and snowshoes hang incongruously from the ceiling, looking decorative in the middle of summer, though cross-country skiing and hiking is big business in the winter. Half the store seems woefully out of season with winter gear and the other half is devoted to canoeing, fishing and rock climbing gear. Kirby is in his early thirties, a strapping guy with dark curls and a wry smile. Owen admires the store and asks about rock climbing in the area. He’s promised to take the boys and gets recommendations as well as equipment tips.

In a back corner of the stock room, where Eric has a desk and a few chairs, the trio sit. Eric peppers Claire with questions about the park and the livestock. Judging from the wall maps and other paper around, the shop is just a storefront for a full on expedition planning and supervision business. Eric’s also heard about the Pteranodons making foraging runs to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. After some conversation about the various merits and weaknesses of containment, Eric shows them his schematics for guiding and outfitting the trips to the Islands. He’s thought a lot about the eight weeks he lived on Sorna alone as well as going back. He’s fascinated with the entire concept of training velociraptors and wants to hear about Owen’s work in great detail. Two hours flies past. They part with promises to talk more online and Eric musing about moving up his date for joining the team over at Alan’s ranch.

On the way out to the Grady ranch, Claire gets Alan on speaker phone. She reports on meeting Eric, careful to include how much they like him. Owen takes sidelong glances at her while he drives. She’s way outside her corporate comfort zone and looks luscious in hiking boots, cargo pants and a tank top. Her fiery locks are back in a messy ponytail, her face clear of make-up, her green eyes are lively with the shop talk as the conversation drifts to more on containment. She insists on wearing his watch, which is seventeen times too big for her wrist. Cute. Which he doesn’t say very often. He grins. She pokes him. He grins wider.

The ranch is so familiar it aches. Owen turns up the long drive to the house.

“You grew up here?” Claire asks.

“Sort of. Before, we lived in Dubois. Over on the other side of the state. After, we lived here. I went from here to Annapolis, bit of a culture shock.” Before and after his parents died.

“I imagine.” She looked around. “This is not the Navy.”

Makes him laugh. “No. No it’s not.”

A beautiful older woman runs out of the house as the car stops. Waist length grey hair flows behind her. She’s trim and athletic in jeans and and work shirt. Not at all what Claire was expecting. She reaches Owen and throws her arms around his neck. “Baby boy.” She says. “It’s so good to see you. I’ve missed you.”

Owen picks her up and hugs her. “Missed you, too, Aunt Deanna.”

Her feet back on the ground, Deanna Grady turns. “You must be Claire.” She embraces Claire. “I can’t thank you enough for taking care of my baby boy.” She says in Claire’s ear.

Unsure how to respond, Claire hugs the woman back. “Well, that’s not entirely accurate, Mrs. Grady.”

“Deanne, please. No formality around here. Come in, come in.” Deanna Grady shoos them in the direction of the house, where a tall slender man waits in the doorway.

In direct contrast to Deanna Grady’s comment, the man extends a hand. “Owen.”

“Sir.” Owen shakes the offered hand. “This is Claire Dearing. Claire, this is my Uncle Owen.”

Claire extends her own hand, to have it enveloped in a gentle clasp. This Owen Grady has a slate blue/gray gaze that takes Claire in from head to toes in a single sweep. She can’t tell if she meets muster. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She falls back on manners her mother drilled into her girls. She nearly curtseys.

The elder Owen Grady smiles at this and nods. “Pleasure’s all mine.” He says. “Now come on in and make yourselves at home.”

Deanna Grady steers the dinner conversation, giving Owen information about his brothers, his cousins, their families, folks he went to highschool with and their families. Claire needn’t have bothered worrying about what to say, all she’s required to do is eat. Having never met any of the people being detailed, she’s free to admire Owen. In his native habitat, she thinks with an inward laugh. She tries to imagine him here as a boy with eight other kids. She wonders if Owen’s father was anything like his Uncle.

They’ve planned to spend the night here. Tomorrow, two of Owen’s brothers and all four of his cousins are coming for a barbecue lunch. It hadn’t occurred to her when she packed for them, they’d be sleeping in separate rooms. But, they are assigned two bedrooms, despite the one suitcase. The last time Claire slept without Owen was the night before the incident in the park. She’s certainly not going to start now. She’s torn between saying something and waiting for the Grady’s to go to bed.

“Aunt Deanna, we’re together.” Owen says simply.

Deanna flusters. “Oh. Of course, you are. I don’t, we just don’t have…”

Owen kisses his Aunt on the cheek. “No bother. We’ll be fine in my room.”

Deanna nods hesitantly, then leaves them in the hallway. When Owen opens the bedroom door, Claire sees what’s caused Deanna’s consternation. Two single beds, side by side under a picture window. She guffaws. “Ah. I’m guessing there’s no double bed anywhere close by?”

Owen shakes his head. “There were too many of us for anything other than lots of bunk beds and trundles, I’m afraid. If it gets too crowded in one of these, I’ll move.”

“Oh, I suspect we can manage.”

And they do. The bed is far too small for even just Owen alone, let alone two of them. When Claire slips under the bedsheets with him, she’s practically on him. “Holy snug fit, batman.” She mutters.

“Hmmmph.” He chuffs. An arm snakes under her neck and one drapes over her ribs. She lifts her leg over his hips for leverage so she won’t fall out of bed. He nudges his leg between hers, grinding his thigh against her. Her pelvis rocks in response. His mouth snags hers in a wet inviting kiss that lights sparklers in her belly. She frames his face with her hands, caressing his beard with her thumbs. He palms her belly, strong fingers splayed and inching toward her core. She’s wet and wanting when his fingers find a sweet spot. She opens her mouth in silent appreciation. If she’s going to have him in her, one of them is going to have to lift up. As she thinks it, he does it and she slips under him, wrapping him with her legs and tugging him close.

He enters her in a long slow welcome slide that seems to last forever. A couple slow rocking strokes doesn’t make any noise, so he picks up the pace until the bed creaks and backs off to a silent pace that’s slower than their usual rhythm, if just. She entwines her fingers with his and their hands slide up over her head in a delicious stretch that adds a crazy friction. He spreads his legs, increasing the arch and grind since increasing the tempo is off the table. Longing ricochets through her from her core to the top of her head. Her eyes drop shut and she falls over the edge of delight with him right behind her.

Sated, she cradles him. He kisses between her breasts. “Holy snug fit, batman.” He says. He props up on and arm and kisses her mouth, swallows her laugh. He raises to a knee.

“Don’t go.” She says.

“Not going.” He kisses the peak of a breast. “But, if one of us is sleeping on top, I’m betting you’ll want it to be you.” He rolls, readjusts until she’s mostly on him, tucked up in his arms, her head under his chin.

She listens to him breathing, the thump of his heart. She rubs her nose in the hair on his chest, finding a comfortable spot, kissing his sternum. It’s long while before sleep claims her, her head full of questions about the years he lived here. Photos on the dining room walls show a confusion of teenagers, hard work in hay fields, somber boys even at play.

~

Fourteen of them make the move to Costa Rica. The team Alan’s put together bonded quickly, almost every one of them survived the islands one way or another. Alan, who has the gravitational pull of a small sun, brought Tim Murphy and Eric Kirby on for the expedition team, then coerced Ellie Sattler to head up the research and logistics team and brought on Billy Brenden. Ellie’s 18 year old son Charlie came with her. To Owen and Claire’s eternal relief, no one so far has protested Karen, Zach and Gray as part of the makeshift family.  Even so, it’s a lot of dudes. Translates into a lot of food and horseplay.

This first few days has been about assessing equipment, outfitting the compound, setting up work and play spaces, and figuring out shopping, cooking and sleeping arrangements.  They’re still waiting on the satellite phones. But like being at college, or being in the Navy, it’s a pleasure to be part of a larger group again. On day four, Claire, Owen, Billy and Karen join Tim for the first reconnaissance flight over Nublar.

Karen’s intake of breath kind of says it all.

Tim takes the plane down to 300ft over most of the park on Isla Nublar and the damage and deterioration astounds. Claire grips Owen’s forearm and his hand comes to her wrist. Claire blinks back the onslaught of memories, flashes of the crowds the last day, all packed along the park boardwalk, under the shadows of pteranodon wings and beaks. She sucks in a breath. The petting zoo enclosure is empty, and all she can think is it must’ve been like predator fast-food for a couple of days. She’d gathered those baby creatures up and they’d become snack food. There are bones everywhere. She knows for a fact all the human remains were recovered. These are animal remains, desiccated  in the sun and humidity. Still haunting. All the more so for Claire’s crushing sense of responsibility. Owen’s hand finds hers and squeezes. She doesn’t feel as if she did this, but she didn’t stop it. She bought the party line, took the money. As did Owen. They’ve discussed their shared culpability ad nauseum over the past six months. While they’re both eager to release the other from any sort of guilt, neither can quite forgive themselves.

The small plane banks out over the triceratops territory, where a small herd is visible grazing near the creek. Claire counts seven in the little group. Karen gasps again, and Claire remembers this is the first time Karen has seen live dinosaurs other than on television or film. Billy starts a quiet narrative describing how the animals live, what they eat, how old they are.

Beside her Owen has eyes locked on the ground, searching for a glimpse of raptor. Claire knows he sees everything, is taking stock, but she also knows he must be hyper alert to be so close. So close and yet, so far. Lowery refuses to let anyone share dry land space with dinosaurs until absolutely all the communications are up and running. For his first act of assertion, he’s rock solid. So for the moment, they’re stuck on the plane or the chopper.

She tightens her grip on him, sending reassurance through her fingers. The plane circles around and she spots his bungalow, the jeep still parked right outside his door. It’s a surreal view, as if they haven’t left and come back. There’s more evidence of the carnage in the valley and there’s clear evidence everywhere the jungle intends to take back both the parks post haste.

Tim takes his passengers on one more circle before heading back to Quepo. The ride from the airport is as eerily quiet as the ride out had been enthusiastically chatty. Each traveler remains caught up in their own reactions to the afternoon’s sights. Tim sold his shares of his grandfather’s many businesses without a backward thought when he joined the Navy. now he wonders if he could’ve prevented any of this insanity if he’d stayed involved. His sister Lex had tried her damndest to dissuade Misrani from pursuing their grandfather’s dreams. Billy returned from Isla Sorna all those years ago, eager to dive into academia and forget the madness of bringing extinct animals back from darkest history. He’d worked several research projects with Alan Grant, and neither of them had attempted contact with the islands. He hadn’t known until recently that Henry Wu had re-enlivened more than 20 species of animals. For her part, Karen should’ve never complained about why her boys were so close to Claire and Owen. She’d had only the barest idea what must’ve happened. No wonder. She feels pressing lucky to have her boys intact. She glances to the furthest back seat of the passenger van. Claire and Owen are melded together, eyes closed, probably some kind of telepathy going on. She realizes she’s slightly jealous of her baby sister, finding such compelling love in the wake of her own disastrous marriage.

When they arrive back at the compound, Claire and Owen clasp hands and head for their cabin. One of four in the compound. Karen watches their backs, wishing she could somehow debrief the short trip with her sister. Instead she walks to the cabin she shares with Ellie for a pre-dinner shower. She’s going to need some more information from her boys about what happened out there six months ago and why they’re here now.

At dinner in the large hallway they use as a dining room Karen finds Claire supervising the younger boys bringing food to the table as the ensemble gathers. “When I said you’d have children one day, I didn’t actually mean you should take mine.” Karen nudges Claire’s shoulder with her own.

Claire usually ignores the jab. This evening, Karen doesn’t sound as angry as she has lately. She wraps an arm around her big sister’s waist. “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think of them as my kids. You don’t get off that easy. I’m so not paying for college.”

“I know.” Karen says. “I should really be grateful for how much you and Owen love them. God knows if Scott and I have taken them to the park we would’ve all…”

“Had a really great time.” Claire interrupts. “I’m sure you wouldn’t have been there when all hell broke loose.” She puts extra firmness in her voice. “And now, now we know better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos always make my day. Thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

“You named one of your raptors Charlie?” Charlie Sattler-Lee leans over Owen’s shoulder at the big worktable where he’s spread the files on his raptors.

“Seems kinda silly now, but we were just going down the alphabet.” Owen recalls how systematic and all scientific they were being. Ridiculous. “And no, didn’t name her Charlie. Named her Charlotte. But, yeah. That’s Charlie.” He slides a photograph clear of the pile of paper. He’d recognize her anywhere, including as a massive set of teeth sent her flying. “Didn’t know about you at the time.” He pulls out of his reverie to look up at the young man who is very present, very here.

A set of keen blue eyes take in the paper on the table and linger on the photo before coming around to Owen. The eighteen-year-old is long and lean like his mom. A messy mop of blonde hair flops over his forehead. He has questions on his face, not the least of which is can he sit. Owen nods to the chair next to him, a half smile lifting the corner of his mouth. Charlie perches on the chair. “Mom calls you the raptor whisperer.”

Owen chuffs. Can’t imagine Ellie calls him that without irony. “Well, you can just call me Owen.” He restacks the files and moves them aside. Silly really, to be looking through them. He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms across his chest and legs at the ankles. Listening posture. He knows when young men want to talk, and this one does.

Charlie natters on a bit about his mom’s take on the dinosaur endeavor. Owen listens politely, making encouraging noises at the appropriate moments. Gradually, Charlie circles around to his own interests in neurobiology and anthropology, which is more interesting. He finally gets around to asking Owen about the relative merits of college versus the Air Force. Here Owen feels equipped to put in two cents about why he chose the Naval Academy. Although he doesn’t know a thing about Colorado Springs, he imagines there are some comparative features. He’s mildly interested in why the Air Force. But as a former SEAL, his allegiance to the Navy is a serious bias.

Tim wanders in, another Navy guy, and the conversation turns to flying. Charlie has some experience flying gliders and biplanes. Tim does hobby flying in addition to flying jets for a living. Owen, more of a boat person, enjoys the discussion anyway. But he declines to go with Tim and Charlie over to the airfield to go over the Cessna. The chopper ought to have arrived, too.

Owen gets up and follows the guys out, then walks over to the bungalow housing the offices. And Claire. He’s currently making due with 30 to 40 minute Claire sightings. It’s frustrating she seems able to go longer without seeing him. Maybe by ten minutes. He laughs at himself but wants to see her and he jogs the last few steps to the porch. The door swings open as he reaches it and Claire almost collides with him. “Hey.” He catches her arms to steady her, but she keeps coming, straight into his embrace, face on his chest. “Hi.” He gathers her, breathes in the flowery scent of her shampoo. Okay, maybe she can’t go longer. He tunnels fingers up into her hair, cradles the back of her head to him. “I was coming to see if you wanted to go for a walk.” He murmurs. She nods, rubs her face on his chest before leaning back and taking her own weight. He keeps an arm around her shoulders as they step into the damp warm air. He feels her lengthen her stride and makes his a bit shorter until they walk at the same pace. “How’s tactical?”

“Good. Man, Lowery’s a beast. He wants to get all the video surveillance on Nublar back up so he can see everything from here. He doesn’t want any of us making any plans to put feet on the ground until we’ve got body cameras in place. Which is smart.” She says. “The chopper arrived at the airport this morning. The sat phones are in transit. We’re fine. Still no consensus on what to do with the pteranodons.”

He knows. Despite being busy, they don’t discuss anything as much as they do the pteranodons. The Costa Rican government wants the animals contained or killed, pronto. If the team can’t come up with a saleable plan to keep the pteranodons on the islands and away from the mainland, the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan armed forces will hunt them down. No one on the team thinks trying more aviaries is the best option any more than they think keeping animals in separate paddocks will work. Keeping the land bound non-flyers in one place seems easy compared to trying to determine the fates of the pteranodons or mosasaurs.

Everything hinges on the philosophical questions of the end game. Alan, hypercritical of what he calls playing god, shies away from making decisions. Leaves the rest of them thrashing around the issues of to be or not to be a world with living dinosaurs. No matter what, someone needs to find out what the hell happened to Wu and what he took when he evacuated. Owen makes a mental note to push Alan on tracking down Wu the next time he gets him alone. On the military end, there’s no chance Hoskins was actually in charge of anything. The man was one of those idiots whose ego was attached to successfully kissing someone’s ass. Weasel, he thinks. Goon. Goddamn…

“Hey.” Hand on his face. Claire. “What was that?” Her eyes search his face, concern etching her features.

“Hoskins.” He says the name like a curse.

“Mmmm.” Her fingers smooth along his brow. “Asshole.” She comments. Makes him smile. Curses falling out of her pert mouth are adorable. She nods once, as if her saying it seals the topic. “How’s it going with expedition plans? What does Barry think about drops of survival gear?”

Last night in bed, Owen had mused aloud about having designated drops for clean water, rations, and communications gear, just in case. This morning Claire mentioned the idea at breakfast. Owen grins. “He ran with it, he’s got a list and I think he’s off getting Alan to sign off. Speaking of Alan, how’s it going on the business front?” Claire hasn’t had any more luck than he has pinning Alan down on practical matters. He listens to her go on about payroll and itemizing while they walk, happy to be hearing her voice, feeling her fingers between his, catching sight of her flame red ponytail in his peripheral vision.

The jungle humidity is heavy and thick, air here is something you tangibly move through. A bit like swimming. Claire talks about inane details of trying to run a business within a business without boss, not because she thinks Owen gives a shit - he could care less - but because he likes to hear her talk. Perhaps because talking aloud helps her think, too. She uncoils, the edginess of nerves sifting away in his presence, letting her think clearly and quickly again.

The property, purchased by InGen, is seventeen acres of jungle holding a handful of cabins and outbuildings. The estate’s main house was essentially eaten by termites years ago and torn down. They arrive at the foundation and pick through the clearing. The back edge of the old concrete foundation is a lovely place to sit and take in the view of the jungle below and the ocean on the far horizon. Owen and Claire return to the spot several times a day, sometimes talking, sometimes just to sit. Owen gets comfortable and Claire cozies between his legs, her back to his chest, his arms around her waist, his cheek resting on her hair.

“Feels like we’re only a couple days away from being able to put feet on the ground.” He says, thinking aloud.

“That’s probably right.”

“Then we could begin serious mapping and getting the counts we can from the air tomorrow.” He feels her nod. “We can do three independent passes at Nublar. You, me and boys do one. Eric, Billy, Alan and Charlie do one. Barry, Lowery, Ian and Ellie do one. Karen can ride along with us if she’s interested.”

Claire laughs. “Oh she’s interested, but not in us. What do you bet she ends up out with Billy?”

“Really?” Owen lets that sit in his brain for a minute. “Huh. Okay… well, Tim says each pass will take about ninety minutes, so that’s an easy enough day. Thursday triangulate the data, see what we need to contemplate for any ground based excursions.”

~

They see more on the chopper passes than they could from the plane. Not the least because they’re assigned to see more. Equipped with clipboards, binoculars, and instructions about what to look for, each team spends close to two hours ticking down the sights while Tim flies a tight grid pattern over Isla Nublar. Tim, who can still name any kind of dino he sees, provides helpful commentary. After the first flight, Owen and Barry pinpoint where the ‘survival packs’ will be dropped. On the third flight, the reinforced dense plastic containers are air dropped.

By day’s end it’s clear the population of the park is slightly more than halved in the six months. They see more, but not nearly enough. No one’s seen t-rex, spinosaurus or Blue. Without working enclosures it’s possible not all the prime predators have survived. No one glimpses mosasaurus in the lagoon, but there’s plenty of evidence animals have been lurking near the lagoon enclosure. With or without mosasaurus, it’s the most consistent source of fresh water in the park.

Dinner is lively, filled with speculation and curiosity. The enormity of the mess left on the island seems to grow in scope each time they find a new way of looking at it. What they’ve set out to do has grown another magnitude. Temptation to abandon the efforts lurks under all the conversation. The idea the fourteen souls at the table can affect any noticeable improvement seems ludicrous. Engaging more help seems doable, but dangerous. The more people, the more dinosaurs, the more danger.

Tired of trying to solve problems that seem intractable, Claire sits back to watch Gray. With Tim and especially with Ian, Gray’s genius seems magically both extraordinary and normal at the same time. The excess of quirky compulsiveness between the three of them is endearing and maddening by turns. Seeing them at the table speculating about the survival odds of indigenous or introduced prey species on the islands makes her heart feel about twice its actual size.

The geek boys lost their audience ten minutes ago and Gray climbed over her to sit on Owen and keep talking with Ian, while Barry and Eric steered their pieces of conversation back to logistics. Claire feels movement behind her and glances back to see Zach pulling his chair around. The chopper rides were the closest they’d been to being back on the island yet. Despite being busy, the proximity took a toll. As Zach’s head rests between her shoulderblades, she leans back a little until they find the right balance. Owen looks over and ruffles Zach’s hair. Claire knows Karen has her back to the foursome, which is better than glaring, but still feels a bit like admonishment.

Claire’s thoughts drift. Every step forward on this project moves them further away from closure, and further into the thicket of an uncertain future. Which is life, she knows. InGen is a career in waiting for somebody. She’s less and less confident that’ll be one of the good professors. She takes a long look around the room, measures every face. She doesn’t doubt this is the right group to get the islands sorted out temporarily. Beyond that, though. The sigh that ripples up from her gut stops Gray mid-sentence, claiming Owen and Zach’s undivided attentions as well.

“Let’s get the dishes underway, before it gets any later?” She smiles sheepishly, unfolding.

Chores are one of life’s great equalizers. Ian dials up sixties dance music, eliciting groans, but genuinely energizing the entire group. With everyone pitching in, and despite a few dance moves, dishes are washed and put away, leftovers are stowed, odd scraps of work are re-filed. Conversation winds down. Billy starts tossing a football around in the quad, and soon enough a game of touch is underway.

Claire slips her arms around Owen’s waist, letting her hand climb under his t-shirt. “Come away with me?” She whispers.

“Yeah? What d’you have in mind?”

“You.”

“Mmmm. That can happen.” He says, his smile wide. Making their goodnights, seeing the boys are peacefully distracted, he tucks her under his arm on the way to the cabin.

Hoping to achieve one small bug free zone in their bedroom, Claire hung netting around the bed, then lined the room itself with an additional three layers of gathered netting, making it possible to sleep with the windows open and the fans going. The resulting ebb and flow of diaphanous white fabric inadvertently creates something of a shrine. But, open windows and flimsy walls don’t offer much in the way of privacy. They’ve become expert at silent lovemaking. After shedding clothes in the hallway between the bathroom and bedroom, wading through waves of netting in murky evening light, Owen follows Claire’s lithe form down onto the mattress, completely willing to drown in pleasure.

Naked Claire in his arms is absolute everything. His gaze skims lazily up her legs in the last fading light of the evening, past the thick patch of curls at her crotch, up the curve from her hips to her ribs, over the round peaks of her breasts, up the slender column of her neck and jut of her chin, pausing at the plump smiling mouth, to fasten on the green ocean of her eyes. The singularity of her pulls him closer still. Her hands flatten on his belly, roam over his chest and shoulders as her legs reel him closer yet.

In the need for silence, he’s learnt her anew, soothing along her edges, savoring a slow swell. She rises, nuzzles his cheek, nips at his lower lip, licks his mouth open, caresses his tongue with hers. He fits his mouth to hers, easing ever closer, gets lost in their kiss for long moments. Her hands attend to him, framing his face, teasing a path down his sternum, across his belly, tracing along the underside of his cock. He doesn’t resist a thrust into her hand, braces his knee between her legs, leans her back, spreads her. He leaves her wet mouth to glimpse the rosy, pink, glistening folds peek at him. Her hips rise, the offer beckoning, her fist clenching around his cock, stoking the ache there, guiding him home.

The first lucious plunge into her is bliss. He finds a rhythm, glides in and out of her like breathing. She takes him in, closer, deeper, faster, until he vanishes in the sheer joy of filling her, spills into her, sparks alive in the only universe that matters to him. She’s everywhere, breath ragged in his mouth, limbs around him, quaking, sweat slick, surge of appealing aftershocks. He regains awareness slowly, the voices outside the window filter in, a breeze tickles across his back. She kisses him, lips dancing over his face, a shower of affection. He collapses into the sheets beside her. Good. So very good.

~

Yesterday’s flyovers have a collective effect of tightening the team focus on the project. First thing in the morning everyone is hard at work. Owen, Barry and Eric sit on the floor in the main building with a map finishing up excursion guidelines. They’ve committed to no weapons other than knives. Eric has great ideas about using the animals’ own strategies to stay safe while on the ground. Being thoughtful about scent and camouflage, having distraction tactics thought out for each species. While Owen understands the raptors intimately, he’s also observed and read up on other species on the island. Eric has more street smarts about how the animals hunt outside their habitats than anyone. Counter intuitively there’s no safety in numbers, in fact, the reverse, more people, more noise, more dinosaurs. Although they’ve outlined suggestions for three person excursion teams, the unspoken problem is still no one wants to go without Owen. Owen has no interest in playing terror island tour guide, nor does he want to be anywhere near any of this without Claire, Zach and Gray.

Claire sits with her back resting on Owen’s, scribbling on budget documents while talking to Alan about making some kind decision about articulating a vision of what the final goal is for the Islands, InGen, and dinosaurs.

“Alan, the hard truth is people keep working on how to make something better and smarter unless you point them in another direction.” She explains. “Think of it as the inertia of business. I’m not sure who you want to be part of this, but the final decision, “ she shakes her head. Starts again. “The articulation has to come from you. We can help. But we can’t do it.” She searches Alan’s face for something definitive. “What will help?”

Alan’s eyes go behind her. She nods. He wants to talk to Owen. Who doesn’t? She nods again. “I’ll ask.” She offers. “Now. We need to get the tranquilizers out here. Ellie thinks have twice what we project, and I think she’s right.” They turn their attention to potential types and doses of tranquilizers for the animals. There’d been several veterinarians on staff at Jurassic World and they begin to go down the list of those to recruit. Behind her the conversation has deteriorated to a muted argument about how to put together the excursion teams and how many teams should be on the ground at once. It’s hard to break through the safety in numbers instinct. It’s impossible to convince Owen to go without her, but everyone else wants to go with him.

Alan mentions a particular veterinarian he wants working with them who’s not on their list and she’s jotting it down when she hears Owen threaten to stay in the offices with Lowery. She flips her folder closed, offers Alan a swift smile and turns. Eric gives Owen a fiery glare, Barry looks amused. Claire levels an irritated gaze at both of them, dismissing them with a jerk of her head. The younger men scramble up, Eric promising to start again early tomorrow. While they decamp for the kitchen, Owen busies himself making notes on a map of the island.

Aware Alan stands in her shadow, Claire bends to look into Owen’s face. “You okay for some philosophical conversation with me and Alan?”

He meets her eyes. “Frying pan, fire, huh?”

She lifts her brows. He’s not actually angry, more bored. It isn’t as if he hasn’t spent hours every night musing about the ethics of all this. He’s got plenty to say. She extends her hand, though he comes to his feet easily from the ground without exerting any pressure on her. “I thought maybe tea over in the lab with Ellie and Ian.” She says.

Oddly, the lab is the most comfortable spot in the compound. Claire attributes this to Ian, who enjoys comfort. No perfunctory office furnishings here. The work tables  around surrounded by wicker chairs and sofas with brightly colored cushions and pillows, sheer patterned fabric hangs from the walls, windows and doors, interspersed with draped mosquito netting. Classical guitar plays from someone’s computer. The electric tea kettle shares counter space with boxes of exotic teas, funky ceramic mugs, and tins of local sugar cookies. The research files from InGen’s records department fill a wall of file cabinets. one of Ian’s first projects for the boys was having them paint the file cabinets in vivid secondary colors. Just walking in the room makes Claire smile.

Ian sits in a wicker armchair, feet up on a hassock, a sheaf of papers in front of him. He peers over his reading glasses at them as they come in. “Have any of you looked at the DNA grafting protocols?” He demands.

“Not in any depth.” Owen admits.

Ian waves the papers at them. “I’ve got Zach making up a chart. It’ll be in your inboxes tomorrow. Before you make any final decisions on tranqs, you need to know what kind of resistances we’re looking at.” He takes a breath. “To what do we owe the pleasure? Come in. Make tea.”

Ellie stands in the next room, arms akimbo, glaring at a stack of boxes. When she sees Claire in the doorway, she waves both hands at the boxes. “What little anyone knows about site b on Sorna. We ought to get into it before we let another bunch of critters loose over there.”

Claire scrunches up her face at this. Reminds herself there’s time. The urgency she feels is not real. “I’ve got Alan and Owen in the other room, we need to talk about the big picture.” She doesn’t need to add Alan wants Ellie’s take. Ellie is the best Alan wrangler here, possibly anywhere. One day, Claire wants the low-down skinny on why Ellie and Alan aren’t together. Today, she needs a mission statement from Alan.

~

Lowery Cruthers sits straight up from a dead sleep. “Of course.”

On the bunk next to his, Tim rolls with a grunt. “Go back to sleep, man.”

Lowery hops out of bed, skids across the concrete floor in his socks, grabs his glasses, his brain on fire. In the dining room he fires up a computer and makes his way out through TOR to the dark web and begins writing code. Moments later he’s scrolling through lines of code and slipping into the seamless, timeless, hacker headspace where he spent far too much time while he was at MIT. He’s spent the last two days, when he wasn’t on the godforsaken helicopter, cursing the InGen idiots for not building some kind of backdoor into their network. Fuck ‘em, he’s going to hack in from here and build his own backdoor. What he’s not going to do is put his feet on that island working on the hardware.

“I’m in.” He rubs his eyes, shoves his glasses back up, checks his work. “I’m in!” He glances around, surprised to find himself in the dark dining room alone. Right. With no idea how much time has passed, he pads outside and across the quad to the office. He flips on the lights and boots up his systems. To his never ending delight he calls up camera after camera until he’s got the entire park on view via the CCTV at last. Gorgeous crystal clear shots and he can toggle the views, change camera angles. “Yes!” He hops up and does a little happy dance. "Yes!"

Now, every animal has a tracking beacon implant. He easily finds the lists and frequencies. Would've helped if someone had thought to have the beacons stop signaling if the host was dead. As it stands the island is littered with beacons, most of them stationary. He shakes his head. No matter. If he sets this up right, the boys can watch for beacon movement and identify specific animals that way. Slow, but accurate.

For the next four hours he sits watching the park, pleased as punch.

The pending sunrise is just a glow on the horizon when he sees her. He whistles low, beings pounding on his keyboard. “Record, record, record, record.” He chants under his breath, setting up the digital recording. He glances back at the monitor. She’s got a goat by the throat. Jesus. He has to get Grady. His fingers fly over the keyboard, searching for her beacon. He reaches toward his pocket for his phone and remembers he’s in boxers, a t-shirt and socks. The phone’s beside his bunk. He hops up and runs.

To his credit Grady comes to the door without complaint, takes in Lowery without comment, cocks his head.

"Found her." Lowery motions with both hands for Grady to follow. "I cracked the CCTV, and the security system, so we can see. She's... you should come..." The spark that lights in Grady's eyes gives Lowery pause.

Claire appears behind Grady, a vision of tumbled red hair, sleepy eyes, long legs extending under one of Grady's t-shirts. She blinks Lowery into focus. There's only one reason the man would be standing at their door at dawn in his underwear. "You found Blue."

"Yes." Lowery points to her. "Yes. That. And everything. You have to come see, though. " He backs a few steps, sees they are on his heels and turns. They jog to the offices.

Confronted with monitors full of the park, Claire makes a surprised, pleased noise in her throat. Lowery works the keyboard and an image fills the center screen. "Recorded this before I came to get you." The form of a velociraptor dances toward the lagoon, hauling a goat in its mouth and hands. Owen moves forward as his 'raptor shakes her head, sending the goat out over the lagoon. "What?" Lowery squints at the screen. A wide snout rises from the water, snags the goat, vanishes. "Did she just...?"

"Where’s she right now?" Owen asks softly, scanning the images on monitors. "Can you find her?"

Lowery rolls a chair over and sits, taps at the keyboard. On a monitor above them the individual camera shots dissolve and a series of green circles appear over a map of the park. More than a handful of lights represent beacons. Lowery isolates Blue’s beacon.. The trio watches silently as the small light crosses through behind the paddocks off the grounds, through the gyroscope valley, outside the perimeter fences, moving away from the park.

Claire grips Owen's shirt in a tight fist. "She's going to your house." She whispers.

Owen sucks in a deep long breath. Adrenalin crashes through him in a tsunami of relief and gratitude. “Thank you.” He murmurs.

Claire gives Lowery a shove on his shoulder. “I’m not even gonna ask you why you’re up at this hour. Good work, my friend.”

Lowery pokes at his glasses. “No cameras out that far.” He mutters, types more. “Eventually, I’ll get all this recorded, not just the video. We’ll also be able to use the same network to add more cameras and to monitor the body cams.” He keeps talking. But the three of them are watching the green light designated Velociraptor 1: Blue make its way across the valley, begin concentric circles until it stops.

“Where’s the t-rex?” Owen asks.

Lowery taps up another green dot, this one far up into the mountains.

“Spinosaurus.” Owen adds.

The spinosaurus beacon is in the lagoon.

“Well, that’s not likely.” Owen says. “Though, she can swim. Where’s mosasaurus?”

There are two green dots in the lagoon, neither in motion. Owen pulls up a second chair. “Show me how this works. Let’s…” he snatches a map off the wall and sits back down. “How can we tell what’s where right now?”

Claire sees Owen get absorbed, his attention narrowing to a lock on the beacons, the maps. A crystal of fear winks in her chest. Perhaps this is when he will leave her. Perhaps Blue is what will take him. A chilly rime of pure fear coats her ribs, spreading outward over her bones. She can run, before her stomach heaves. She can… Owen’s hand on hers pulls her back. Green eyes smiling up at her. He tugs her into his lap, a possessive hand comes to her belly.

“Look. This is outstanding.” He says into her ear. As fast as he can scribble down the identities of the dots on the map, Lowery isolates and they continue. Claire makes herself smaller, curled into the curve of Owen’s chest.

Owen’s scribbles are more a form of visual thinking. “Can you take a printable screenshot of this,” he waves a hand. “Say, every hour? For a coupla days? Every beacon with its designation?”

“The question is could we print it.” Lowery glances at the desk top printers on the adjacent counter. “But, yeah. Theoretically, yeah.”

“Brilliant. Outstanding.” Owen says, leaning back now. “I see Charlie and Echo, still where they fell. Can you find Delta for me?”

Lowery types, a dot appears. “Her beacon’s at your house. If they are together, and wanted to carve out a territory including gallimimus valley and the gyrosphere valley, that’s not a bad base.” Lowery says.

Owen uses his pencil to draw on the map. “They’d have a natural territory more like this.” His circle takes in a large part of the plains beyond his bungalow in addition to the valleys Lowery indicated. “That’s part of the problem with having the animals in such a small space.” He sighs. The conversation about the future goals of the dinosaur endeavor lasted long into the previous evening and night.

“We have to look at using all five islands.” Claire said. She hasn’t spoken in a bit and Owen’s arm tightens around her in response. He nods.

“We do.” He says. “But, we should all try to get some rest.” He claps Lowery on the back. “I don’t know how to thank you, man.”

“I’m really glad we found ‘em.” Lowery says.

“Thanks. Really.”

Owen walks back toward their cabin, an arm around Claire. It feels different, knowing where she is. Seeing Blue. Even for just a moment. Finding Delta’s beacon isn’t quite the same as knowing, but he’s hoping she’s still alive, too. Claire shivers under his arm. Given how hot it is that makes no sense. He stops walking to turn her, look at her. “You okay?”

“I, uh, yes. Glad. Yes.”

Incoherent Claire is a rarity. A sometimes precursor to lots of crying or out and out panic. He puts his forehead on hers. “What?”

“Scared.”

“Of the raptors?”

“No.” She shakes her head then nods. “Well yes, of course, yes. But, no.”

“Of me?”

“Going.” She nods. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I’m not going.”

“If they need you.”

“They don’t need me Claire. You need me. I need you. Not. Going.” He says, slowly. “Staying. With you.”

She looks at him, or past him. Her gaze is more glazed than he likes. He lifts her into his arms, carrying her the remaining hundred yards to the cabin. On the porch he climbs into the hammock with her still in his arms, suspending them in the wet warmth of the early morning. The swing rocks, cradles them. Her clutch on his shirt is still too tight.

“Claire.” His voice is low, solemn. “Claire.”

“Yes?”

“Even if Blue did need me, I won’t leave you. Not for her. Not for anyone or anything.”

Her grip tightens. “Me either. Won’t leave you.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Oh shit. No. No. No. No.” Ian Malcolm scrambles to his feet and pounds on Alan Grant’s bedroom door. “Alan. Get out here. Get out here now.”

~

“Claire!”

Someone’s banging on the cabin door. Again. Which is so unlikely Claire at first thinks she’s having some kind weird dream. Then she recognizes Zach’s voice brimming with a familiar urgency that makes her blood run cold and brings her to her feet.

“Aunt Claire! Owen! Hey, you guys!”

Owen rolls from the bed and pads to the door, Claire right behind him. He opens the door to Zach and Gray spilling into the tiny living room. Owen runs a hand through his hair. Claire backs up. Zach shoves a tablet into Claire’s hands.

“Alan says we have to get back to San Diego. Right now.” Gray chirps.

“Henry Wu testified yesterday and his testimony leaked.” Zach says.

Owen looks over Claire’s shoulder at the Huffington Post headline. **Is T-Rex the New A-Bomb?** “Good lord.” Claire blinks.

“Look.” Gray turns on the television, and for several confused minutes all anyone can do is stare. Gray’s thumb on the remote cycles through channels in Spanish and English. Every possible news outlet is filled with the truly bizarre, and vaguely military sounding, InGen security plans to develop predator dinosaurs as weapons. Video of Henry Wu leaving the courthouse, ancient footage of Wu with John Hammond in a laboratory and leaked security footage of his absurdly smug exit from the park illustrates the reporters’ fevered descriptions of cloning, bioengineering and genetic tampering.

InGen’s history of bringing extinct animals back to life is recycled on a wild sideways media fueled tangent reminiscent of the insanity in the wake of the t-rex arrival in San Diego fifteen years ago. Creaky film footage of destroyed property and the ferociously angry t-rex at a Chevron station provide lively accompaniment to the notion of using such tactics in combat. Juxtaposed against recent video of pteranodons kiting over the beach on Costa Rica, the colliding narratives are startling. Fifteen years ago the one dinosaur was shipped back to Isla Sorna, and the property was designated a natural preserve. This morning, several governments are threatening drone strikes.

“D’you think that t-rex is still alive on the other island?” Gray wonders aloud, riveted to the images flickering past on the tv.

“Don’t see why not.” Zach offers. “Unless she ran out of food.”

“Slow news day.” Claire says. There may only be minutes before someone begins publicizing  Owen’s work with the velociraptors. And vilifying him. Which she cannot, will not allow. So far, InGen has maintained a strategy of blame the dead and pay out settlements. But, who knows what Wu will do to save his sorry ass. She pivots for the bedroom and clothing. She has to do something, her mind reels. From here there seems to be no way to do something. Anything.

Owen is steps behind her. “Fuck a bunch of Hoskins, crazy, money hungry motherfucker, if he wasn’t dead, I’d kill him.” He mutters under his breath, his every gesture getting dressed more hostile than the one before. 

Claire tries to ignore him. Alan has to get out in front of this somehow. Her fingers slip and her bra strap smacks her in the back. She’s also trying to ignore the boys and the television in the front room. She can’t hear what they’re saying, but she hears the tone, Zach’s cool detached narration, Gray’s escalating excitement, the pumped up whine of breaking news. Surely Lowery can get something up on the internet from here. “Come on guys, come on.” She grabs shoes in one hand, herding Owen into the living room, pointing the boys out the door. She might be ignoring them, but she’s not leaving them.

Out in the quad, Owen heads for the bunks and Claire heads for the professors’ cabin. Three yards apart they all stop, the boys don't know who to follow, the adults don't know where they’re going. Two pairs of green eyes meet and lock. “Lowery.” Claire and Owen say in unison, Claire changes direction and the foursome breaks into a sprint.

“Shoulda found whoever hired that cretin and shot ‘em. Wu probably built his jiggly ass from spare parts.” Owen says, as much to himself as to anyone. Claire opens the door to the bunkroom. She and the boys look at each other in appreciative amusement. Owen continues under his breath, flipping on the lights. “Dogs of war, bullshit. Never saw combat in his wettest wet dreams. Sorry son of a…” His next epithet is overrun by complaints from the guys still in bed.

“Hey.”

“Christ, what time’s it?”

“Lowery, wake up.” Owen grips Lowery’s arm, bringing the smaller man awake with a start. “Lowery. Up. Claire needs you. Come on. Up.” Owen moves down the row of beds, shoving shoulders. “Kirby. Murphy. Up.”

Claire drops to the edge of Lowery’s bed, putting on her shoes. Lowery fumbles for his glasses in astonishment. She explains what she knows and asks how fast they can broadcast a reply. Anything.

Lowery rubs his eyes. “Whenever you want.” He says. “You just gotta have something to post.”

“Thank you.” Claire leans over and kisses him on the forehead, earning a dazed smile.

Tim listens, watches, scrubbing his head. He puts feet on the floor while he taps on his phone. He meets Claire’s eyes and points at Owen. “We need to get him lawyered up and underground.”

Tim’s seriousness wrenches at Claire’s heart. She nods. “I know.” She’s afraid to even touch her phone, sure it’s blown up and her with nothing to say. Yet. She squares her shoulders. She turns to her boys. “Zach, go get your mother.” She takes Owen’s hand. “We’ll get Alan and Ian. Meet in the dining room. Now.”

Outside, she turns to Owen, gripping his hand tightly. “You. You… you, don’t say anything to anyone. Stay behind me. And do everything I tell you to do.”

He tilts his head. “What?”

“When the media finds out about the ‘raptor project they will conflate it with this…” she waves a hand, doesn’t know quite what to call this. “They’ll want a villain, and I’ll give them Wu, Simon, Hoskins, hell, myself, even John. But I won’t give them you. D’you understand?”

“What I understand is there are people talking about killing animals.”

“Owen, there are people talking about creating another Captain America, too.” She puts a finger on his chest, at her wits end. “You, stay behind me. Do. You. Understand?” She punctuates each of her final three words with a poke.

“Yes, ma’am.” He squints, fleetingly tempted to point out Steve Rogers is still make believe and his raptors are not. In the face of her sparkling green furious love, though, he stands down.

She nods, curtly. Then underlines the seriousness of her gesture by reaching on tiptoes to kiss his chin. “Don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

He’s not completely sure why she’s interpreted this turn of events as a threat to him. He follows in her wake, toward the lab, oddly touched.

“This is exactly what I mean when I talk about the fallacies of linear planning in the face of complexity.” Ian points at Claire and Owen when they walk into the lab. “No one listens to me.”

“Everyone listens to you, Ian.” Alan grumbles. “We just don’t like you. That’s different.” Alan has his excursion hat on, though he’s still in pajamas and robe.

Ellie, Billy and Karen huddle around a monitor. Ian, new audience spurring him on, continues. “Complexity. The dinosaurs are charitably feeding each other. And the news cycle about the horrors of military dinosaur action may cause military action to kill the dinosaurs. Life is unpredictable. It finds a way. For better or worse…” He’s interrupted by the belated arrival of the boys, who figured out their mother must be here.

“Mom.” They say in chorus.

“You’ve all seen the news.” Claire says.  The solemn faces all turn to her. She looks from one face to another. “We have to figure out how to contain Wu.”

Ian shakes his head. “No. No. You cannot control people anymore than you can control dinosaurs. A knee jerk response of any kind may just end up being fuel for another firestorm.”

“I’m afraid Ian’s right.” Ellie says, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in her chair. “We talked about how we want to articulate the business of InGen from now on, but only with each other. So now, this nonsense is out there in a data vacuum.”

“No. It’s worse than that.” Karen says. “Wu is out there with old data, where InGen is about profit and spectacle. He probably doesn’t think he’s even doing anything wrong. Nor will anyone else in the corporate offices unless and until we bring them along.”

“Omigod. A woman who gets this.” Ian sighs, casts Karen an appreciative look.

Claire sinks into a chair. “I’m afraid no one will understand what was going on with the raptors.”

“Well, the way it stands now, the idea of weaponized dinosaurs sounds fairly ridiculous.” Karen says.

“Which it was. Is.” Owen says.

“It won’t if anyone ever gets their hands on the records from the raptor studies.” Claire admits. “Let’s get everyone together on this, before the media gets here.”

Breakfast is really the first task, and while Owen, Gray and Ian whip up pancakes, Karen and Billy fry up bacon and sausage. Barry was up long ago and already has pots of strong coffee going. He and Lowery also tune in as much news as they can on various outlets and devices.

“Hey. Got a quarter?” Karen asks Owen as he serves up a tray of hotcakes.

He digs in his pockets and comes up with a crumpled dollar bill. “No, I have this.”

“That works.” She plucks it from his fingers and tucks the dollar in her bra. “I represent your interests now. You don’t flex a single pretty muscle, for any reason, without my say so.”

Owen hesitates, forcibly reminded Karen is a flesh eating corporate attorney in one of Minneapolis’ most prestigious firms. The flint in her eyes, leveled at him for the first time ever, is Claire on steroids. Her grin, in response to his momentary recalibration, is sharklike chilly satisfaction.

While the group eats, Karen outlines the legal positions of every aspect of the Jurassic World Park, InGen, Misrani Holding Company, the Costa Rican government and the individual players, including every one of them around the table. As her sister slips out of beleaguered mom posture and dons her shiny wicked lawyer armor, Claire recalls what a heaven it has always been to have a big sister, six years older, smarter than Athena, and as ferocious as a bear.

“So, that doesn’t get at what to do next. But I want to make sure everyone understands where we are now. Whether we like it or not, InGen owns the animals. Not Wu, not you. And they’re not free.” Karen points to Alan. “You have controlling share of the company. That’s influence, not ownership.” She points to Claire, Owen, Lowery and Barry. “You are former employees. InGen’s liability covers you for anything and everything you did while you were employed. But no more.” She lets her eyes roam the table, making sure she has everyone’s attention.

Ian taps his coffee mug thoughtfully. “Alan, you and I should talk with Henry. Not to shut him down. But to… uh, change his worldview.” He glares at the rest of the group. “While we do that, please see what you can do to make those dinosaurs vanish back into mythology. Please. They were alive and well on Sorna for twelve years with nary a peep until someone got the bright idea to show them off again.”

Owen tucks into breakfast, he was starving, and listens. This is still the kind of conversation that puts him to sleep. His experience of organizational political bullshittery is active disinterest. But, a roomful of people so smart it hurts is nice. He loved the Navy, still does, but it wasn’t exactly a nest of nerds. Speaking of nest of nerds, he wonders if either Claire or Karen has noticed Zach, Gray, Lowery and Tim have got something brewing at their end of the table.

As the talk continues about the ethics of the company, the board of directors and the like, Owen lets his mind trail away. He recalls with sterling clarity the moment Blue cracked the shell of her egg, a tiny claw tapping its way out into the air. He’d stroked the sharp edge with mild curiosity, waiting. As far as he’d known at that moment, the whole endeavor was just some kind of intellectual exercise for Wu, some kind of status seeking handjob for Hoskins. If they wanted to pay him a half a million dollars for a year chasing dinos at a theme park, he’d take their money. The egg cracked along its upper left quarter, lifting away with slow delicacy.

Blue nudged her entire head out of the shell in a single go and fixed one black eye on him. Gorgeous. When he bent to look at her, she’d taken him in with her gaze. Assessed him. Greeted him. And damned if he hadn’t talked right back to her, the reassuring coo spilling out of him, tucking his pinky finger into her claw while she kicked away the rest of the shell. “Oh, she’s pretty.” Someone said from behind him. She opened her snout, yawned and bit into his finger with teeth so small he didn’t see them at first. He certainly felt the sting when she perforated the end of his finger like so many cactus needles. When he took his finger back, Blue cocked her head and gave him her other eye. He’d held her in the palm of his hand and fed her, and tried to avoid the teeth. He’d memorized her markings. He was the first living being she’d ever seen. The first thing she tasted was his blood.

Owen drains his coffee cup and rubs the tip of his pinky finger where he feels the little knots of scar tissue. One day, he figures those might be gone. He sighs. He’s done with all this talk about who has what, who can say what to whom. There’s nothing he can do about it if some nut decides to open another park. Regardless, there has to be a way to get his raptors out of reach of madmen. Done eating, he stretches back in his chair, crosses his feet at the ankles. He can be a grown up and listen. Later he’ll take to the hammock and figure something out.

“Merde, mon ami.” Barry drops into a chair behind Owen. “Some of these news reports make it sound like the amusement park was a front. A way to acclimate people to idea of these animals, while building monsters for bad purposes.”

“I don’t know.” Owen says. “Every now and then it seems like that’s how they got us to do what we did, too.”

“They have no idea how smart these animals are.” Barry says.

“No, they don’t. Not that we didn’t tell ‘em.”

Barry smiles, a slow reluctant smile. “True that. If you’re planning to do something really crazy, let me know. I might want to come along.”

“I’ll do that.”

~

“Come on, babe. Quittin’ time.” Owen tugs Claire’s ponytail. She’s been glued to her computer throughout the afternoon scanning the news, while simultaneously doing data entry for the hourly beacon data.

She looks at the monitor. “I can’t. I have to know.”

“Nope. You don’t.” He says, strumming the skin on her neck with light fingers. “Anyway, you want to tell Karen why you haven’t eaten or rested? ‘Cause I’m not telling her. I’m kinda scared of her.”

The corner of Claire’s mouth quirks up a tick. “She’s the best, huh?”

“Mmmm.” He drops into the chair next to hers, his knuckles grazing down her arm until he takes her hand, weaves his fingers between hers. “Don’t know the last time I had anyone go into protector mode like that for me. You know, in combat, you always have the other man’s back and he’s got yours. But it ain’t like that. Probably not since my mom.” He cocks a brow. “It’s nice.”

“I protect you.” She protests.

“”Yes. You do. But, that’s… “ he brings her hand to his mouth, “slightly different.” He kisses the back of her fingers. “I protect you, too.”

“According to my expert, you’re a badass.” She laughs.

“Yes, indeed.” He leans forward to kiss her cheek. “Still not gonna take on your sister.” He kisses her mouth. “Ever.”

“Coward.” She whispers.

He rocks forward, sweeps her up over his shoulder and strolls out of the lab. He doesn’t put her down until they reach the porch of the cabin they share. “Dinner is served.” He opens the door with a flourish.  He’s made chicken salad, served on corn tortillas. They dig into the meal to the accompaniment of bird calls and Ian’s 1960’s R&B.

“So, why are you cooking me dinner?” Claire asks around a mouthful. They eat in the cabin sometimes, but mostly in the dining hall with the others.

“Gotta go to the park tomorrow. On foot. Please come with me.”

“Gods, Owen.” Claire closes her eyes. “It’s not safe.”

“Nothing is safe.”

“Yes, but many things are safer than that.” She’ll of course go. If he has to go. If they have to go. Which they do. Will. She opens her eyes to look at him. “I was hoping we’d wait for the body cams.”

He nods. “Me, too. I hoped for a lot of things. Probably better not to have too detailed a record just now. I don’t want to leave without at least letting her know we didn’t forget about her. You, me, Barry, and Eric. That’s it. Couple hours.”

“Couple hours.” She echoes, thinking back. The last hours on the island were the longest in her life so far. She can’t imagine going home without walking on the island. Make the disaster real again. a lot of people died on her watch. See Blue, meet her eye again. Claire blows out a long sigh. “What did Eric say?”

“Haven’t asked. Want to be sure. That we’re sure.”

“We’re sure.” She takes her last bite of chicken. “Let’s go ask him. Tell everyone.  Give them at least a fighting chance to talk us out of this.”

The suggestion Owen, Claire, Barry and Eric make an excursion to Nublar tomorrow doesn’t bring any of the consternation or protest Claire expected. Everyone has seen the raptor beacons at Owen’s bungalow several times a day. More surprising than anything is the boys’ acquiescence. No clamoring to go with, nothing but polite interest. Eric bypasses saying yes to the request he go with them, straight into a litany of pre-excursion preparations they should’ve already started.

Claire tries to split her brain and listen to two things at once. Eric has really detailed instructions about how not to look and smell like prey. At the other end of the room, it seems Wu’s attorneys have him locked up. Alan and Ian are proposing to return to San Diego tomorrow, chancing the ability to do things in person they cannot accomplish remotely. Time was she’d be all about negotiations, regulations and power. Part of her still wants in on that conversation. But she’s not that girl anymore. She’s the girl heading out into the jungle.

Eric hands her a bottle of Dr. Bonner’s, which brings her full attention back to him. She peers at the bottle, then back at Eric. “Skin, hair, everything.” He’s saying. “Wash twice. Lots of rinsing.”

The concept of using nothing but liquid castille on her hair is so alien Claire just blinks. Opens her mouth. Closes it. Beside her, Owen chuckles. “You do kinda always smell like dinosaur salad.”

“What you both usually smell like is sex. Which I have no idea what the animals will think about.” Eric adds, a wicked twinkle in his eyes. “So…. if you could wait to wash up, maybe, after…”

Claire squeaks. “Omigod.” Heat flashes to her cheeks. Eric has the wisdom to take a step backwards, out of her reach.

“Give me what you want to wear, we’ll wash it in detergent free soap, too.” Eric sails on blithely. “The only things we need to take are freshwater and whatever tools we want. I’m still leaning away from guns. It’s not like you can effectively slow something that size down with a bullet anyway. A knife is always handy.”

“And a multi-tool.” Owen says. “If anything else comes up, there’s a ton of stuff on the island from vehicles to foodstores. We don’t have to carry anything, really. But water is always nice.”

“Well, probably best if Tim drop us at the geographically farthest spot from any of the animals. So we might have a hike before we reach anything useful.”

Claire’s indignation evaporates as quickly as it came. “Phones and cameras?”

“Should be fine.” Eric says. “Though I’m not vouching for us staying dry. We can try.”

“We’ve got the emergency packs we dropped the other day, too.” Owen reminds them. “We’ll be fine.”

Claire also wants to be sure Lowery will be keeping an eye on them. She glances around the room. He’s in a intense conversation with Barry, Zach and Gray over a laptop and legal pad. She nudges Owen. “What’s that about?”

“No idea.” He says. “Definitely not nothing. 

She cuts her eyes at the double negative. “So… definitely something.”

“Let’s go get some rest. Long day ahead.” He herds her toward the door with his body. She hesitates, glances back at the boys. She’ll see them at breakfast. She lets it go and turns to Owen. His smile widens, an invitation. When she doesn’t move, he extends a hand in mock formality.

They walk toward their cabin in the dusky light, music drifting from the lab. Claire’s feet can’t resist. She tucks herself into Owen’s arms. “Dance with me.”

“My pleasure.” Owen snugs her up against his chest and rocks to the backbeat of Dionne Warwick stylings of Bacharach saying a little prayer. Claire sings along, rests her cheek along the curve where his shoulder meets his neck. “So much my pleasure.” He says in her hair, leading with a box step.

“All I’ve ever wanted is a man who will dance.” Claire sighs happily, swinging her hips in step, following.

Owen laughs. “I don’t recall dancing being on that date list of yours.”

“That’s because it’s on the list for date number three.” She says. “Which you haven’t seen. Since we only ever had the one date.”

A hundred jibes about the lists arrive on the tip of his tongue. She has lists for everything from groceries to lifetime achievement goals. He has actually seen her make of list of things to do she’s already done, just so she can cross them off. He’s sure she does have a list for date number three somewhere. She has lists like knights have armor. She wears them over fear and to keep disappointment at bay. But right this moment she shines in his arms, eyes half closed, swaying up against him, so he kisses her instead.

She kisses him back, languid and soft. He can be her armor, wrap around her against every loss, fill the cracks in her confidence, fold into every sadness. That’s the job he wants to earn, really the only fair exchange for her keeping him whole. Desire stirs up from his belly, he wonders idly which list has sex on it. He smiles against her lips. They may not get to that, either. But he’s going to make love to her now until he can’t tell where he stops and she begins, until neither of them can breathe. 

Claire feels the physical shift from play to love arch from him, down her throat, into her lungs. Her steps stutter and she’d be falling backwards if he wasn’t holding her in the air. She slides her hands under the collar of his shirt, arms around his neck, grips his shoulders. Her thoughts wash away with a thrill wanting.

Owen’s awareness dims, but not so far he doesn’t see the two steps and the door. When the door swings shut, he lets the rest go and hits his knees, tumbling them onto the rug in an ungraceful heap of scrambling out of clothes, caressing skin, tasting, pressing, falling. He sinks into her, sweet oblivion. She takes him deep on a single thrust, a boot sole digging into his hips. He has a fleeting awareness of burn smearing into pleasure.

After the first few crazy collisions, after being sure she won’t dissolve, he slows, begins a more deliberate quest. He’s learnt countless ways to fill her with consolation and coax her comfort. He’s surely found his own soul soothing submersion in her. He drags his consciousness back from the brink of abandon and turns his not insignificant attention to details. He kisses her mouth, her jaw, she tastes of salt tangy sweat. He drops kisses across her shoulder, skims his hands up to her ribs, feels the swell of her breasts on his chest. He arches into her, cataloguing each ripple and tug. He glances down and her stare snags him, pulls him further in, sears into him. A purr rumbles up from her with a gravitational pull. She’s close and he steadies their rhythm, holds her there on the edges of bliss until her whimper undoes him and they fall together, breathless melted pleasure.

Claire tightens, whispering something against his neck. He doesn’t want to crush her and rolls to his side, easing away, then curling her into his arms. He chuffs, catches his breath.

“That was…” She puffs a breath onto his chest. “Gods. You… you were...” 

“I was making a list of you. Didn’t get very far yet, though.” He kisses her forehead.

“Making me crazy.” She says, rolling to sit. “Come on, we need to shower. You can finish your list in there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A billion thanks for all the lovely comments and kudos! They are like magic and keep me happily at the keyboard.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the break in the action. RL intervenes and the muse has to wait:). As always, please excuse typos and errors.

 

Alan Grant starts the morning the way he ended the previous night; on the phone. The overnight news is full of details about people who’ve lost their lives to the attractions of Jurassic Park over the years, proof how deadly the undertaking has been, proof how effective the animals would be as weapons. The Guardian posted a thoughtful article about John Hammond, the dream of the park, and lengthy analysis of the problems of owning animals for show. Comments on the article compare t-rex to orcas, considerably more dangerous in captivity than in the wild. Much is being made of the working class status of the dead, Misrani being such a notable exception. Claire sits at Alan’s side with notes and a laptop open. They wrangle an avalanche of questions reminiscent of Claire’s time on the stand in court. She’s grateful to have Alan between her and the interrogations, but her nerves draw up taught and raw. On the other side of the room, Owen keeps an eye on her while he and Barry brief Eric on the park as they left it all those months ago, and make plans for the excursion they leave for in a few hours. Hearing a particular note in Claire’s voice Owen flexes, but Gray scoots his chair up next to her and curls up with his head in her lap. Owen unwinds a notch, watches her settle as she absently tugs fingers through Gray’s curls.

 

Noises of Karen and Billy packing in the next room pull at Claire’s fraying attention. Along with Ian and Alan, they leave this afternoon for San Diego. Claire and Alan set up a series of meetings with board members and key staff, filling the next week. Claire eavesdrops on Owen’s voice describing the breach of the aviary and speculating on where the pteranodons may be nesting, her stomach churns with wanting to join the discussion like she has some idea. She drags her focus back to Alan’s side of the conversation with the director of InGen security. Gray snuggles closer, she glances down, fleetingly wonders what he’s thinking. She feels like a fretful seven-year-old in math class. She scribbles a long three-dimensional line on her scratchpad. Alan mentions research possibilities. Which no one on the current security team cares about. She writes him a note ‘more about reducing liability and sustainability.’ He changes directions. Behind her, Owen says “no, I don’t think that’s the problem” and she wants to know what’s not a problem. She sighs, cards fingers through Gray’s silky curls. One day some girl will love these, she smiles. 

 

Karen’s laugh drifts in from the next room and Claire thinks it’s incredibly nice to hear. The corner of Gray’s mouth lifts. Claire leans over and whispers in his ear. “Is she leaving you here?”

 

Gray nods, his mouth curving into a grin. 

 

“Wonders never cease. I never thought she’d leave you with me again.” They giggle together. Claire flashes on him a few years from now, no longer so easy and cuddly. She brushes his nose with two fingers. A warm heavy hand rests on the back of her neck, broad and strong. 

 

“You two are having entirely too much fun over here,” Owen says softly beside her ear. He reaches past her to chuck Gray on the cheek.

 

Gray scrambles to sit. “D’you decide where you’re gonna put down?”

 

“That’s the easy part. We’re going in on the bay, there.” Owen says. He points to a spot on the map behind the desk. Gray frowns up at him. “We’ll check out the park. Look for the raptors.” Owen offers.

 

Gray’s entire face scrunches up. T-rex includes the park firmly in her territory and spends large parts of the day there. Video shows mosasaur, while taking advantage of velociraptor handouts, has become very adept at snagging prey from below and along the edges of the lagoon. 

 

Owen shrugs. “We’ll be careful. My team snuck behind the lines during the war once, took some fire, got what we went in for and got out in six hours. I had to take some shrapnel out of my knee and hike out seventeen miles. This’ll be easy.” He runs a hand over a shiny jagged scar on the inside of his left knee.

 

“Ugh. What happened, why’d you have to do that?”

 

“Can’t tell you any more, son. Top secret Navy SEAL work.”

 

Claire has seen the scar but didn’t know he’d done surgery on himself. Sometimes the depth of what she doesn’t know about him, given how well she knows him, spooks her. Gray traces a finger over the scar and asks what the wound looked like. Owen drops to his haunches beside their chairs and obliges with a detailed, if gory, description. Claire shifts to put her back between them and where Alan attempts to arrange another meeting. Karen leans out the door and crooks a finger at Gray. He hops up.

 

Claire looks into the green eyes that are the only really safe place she knows. She furrows her brows. "Can I ask you something?"

 

Owen's eyes widen. She's not one for asking permission to speak. He's tempted to say no. Silly, that thought, though. "Okaaaay."

 

Her lips twitch. "How come you weren’t with someone? Then. When we met.” Her lips curve up, but the smile doesn't reach her eyes. She's serious.

 

Seriously baffling, he thinks. "This, coming from someone who despised me after one date. Let's see." He mock speculates. Before he can go on, color spills up from her chest in a deep blush staining her cheeks. She closes her eyes. He taps her chin. His voice drops. "Hey. What's going on?"

 

"You're sweet and funny and smart and ..."

 

He stops her with a finger on her lips. He nods. "Yeah, well. You've gotta scratch pretty deep before you get to any of that." He admits. "Getting past obnoxiously smug takes some doing." She laughs, a vibration. He smiles. His smile fades, he watches her carefully.

 

"Lucky for me." She tousles his hair, making the curls go every which way. 

 

"You think?" He asks.

 

"I know." She presses her mouth to his. 

~

A mile up the creek the jungle is loud, hot, wet and close. The light on the water is green and blue through the dense canopy above. The air is still and fragrant of moss and something sweet. They’ve been walking for half an hour, skirting the creek bank through the valley. For the first time in seven long months, Claire’s anxiety matches her surroundings. Probably not what the doctor might have ordered, she thinks with a small smile, but a nice congruence anyway. Beggars can’t be choosers. Ahead of her, she feels Owen’s attention hone and sharpen in the lovely way she’d been attracted to when she met him. Eric follows in a manic kind of happy daze, bounces like a puppy with every step, while Barry maintains a feline caution on rear guard. They’re on a part of the island adjacent to the new park she’s only seen on maps. A slow moving group of triceratops lumber in the water, ignoring the people. 

 

Another half hour and they look out over gallimimus valley. Owen motions for a halt before they leave the jungle canopy. “Look. I’ve got to do the best for my raptors I can.” He begins. “If I can, I want to remove the beacons. If they’ll let me. That’s on me. I don’t want any of you to feel like you have to be part of that. If we go to the park first, I can get the equipment I need. You two can go to the…”

 

Eric interrupts. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not gonna do surgery…”

 

“You might be surprised.” Owen interrupts.

 

Eric holds up a hand. “I’m not saying you couldn’t. I’m saying we came to help. We’ll help.”

 

Owen looks at Claire. She nods. “Of course. Don’t be silly.” Her mock bravado earns grins from the men. She shrugs. “When were planning to spring it on us that you want to move them to Sorna, too?” No one is confused Owen feels responsible for the raptor’s vulnerability, perhaps is responsible for that, and no one is confused by the need to set them free. Completely free. As it stands the two velociraptors are too well trained, too easily found, too easily targeted. 

 

Barry cuffs Owen on the shoulder. “Your boys had you figured out last night, mon ami. Let’s get after this and then get the hell out of here, pronto.” 

 

Claire nods. “Part of the not nothing they’re working on with Lowery.”

 

“Wait.” Owen tilts his head. Eric and Barry start walking. 

 

Claire chuckles. “Come on.” She starts after them.

 

Owen takes up the rear guard. “No, seriously. You knew? Then, how…”

 

They skirt the valley with Zach on the phone giving them locations on animals as they go. They reach the gyrosphere landing, deserted but for the sign posts and lots of empty plastic balls. Eric knocks on the shell of one. “Hey, Zach. What do you guys think about getting a coupla these up and running?”

 

“Best we can tell, the batteries should be fine. The trick’ll be unloading ‘em.” Zach says on the speakerphone. “When the ride was closed, the door locks and dock locks kicked in to immobilize all the spheres still waiting. We’ve been trying to find the release in the software, but there might also be a release on the dock. Hop over to the attendant’s stand.”

 

Owen puts his hands on his hips, unsure whether to go with gratitude for the complicity of all his friends, or irritation at their assumptions. Correct assumptions, though. Is that good? Eric climbs up on the dock attendant’s stand with Barry. From the stairs, Claire turns to look back at him. 

 

He’s not sure how she manages to look so adorably gorgeous in jungle camo. The greens and browns are perfectly suited to her, and fatigues and a tank top are perfectly fitted. Her hair is heavy and slightly coarse, with heft and curl. She dyes it the deep ‘serious’ auburn, from its natural strawberry color between blonde and red. He glimpses lighter roots along her bangs some days. Now, without the habitual two handfuls of product and lots of heat, she’s got it pulled back in a braid, frizzing around her face in the humidity. Perfect. He goes with the gratitude.

 

“Why are we going for the hamster balls? We can probably finds bikes up ahead easy enough.” He asks from the bottom step.

 

“Bikes are noisy and smelly and don’t offer any protection.” Eric doesn’t look up from the keypad he’s messing with. 

 

“Right.” Owen gives the nearest gyrosphere a skeptical once over. From what he's observed the things are pretty cool and super nimble. It just looks… small. 

 

~

 

Owen stops the gyrosphere when his bungalow comes into view. According to Zach, they’re here. He takes in the jeep and bike parked in front. The ground around the bungalow is a bit trampled, otherwise it looks like it did when he left with Clair. Seems like eons ago, and just the other day. Well, nothing to be done for it. He swings open the sphere and steps out. He leans on the sphere’s roof and whistles. A quick greeting whistle. Two notes. He waits. Takes a few steps. Whistles again.

 

The front door opens and a blue-grey snout lifts out with a nasal honk. His heart does a small flip as Blue bounces out of the bungalow with another bark. Delta comes around the bungalow, head tilted. Guttural clicking from the velociraptors fills the spaces between them all, a noise Owen’s come to associate with his girls thinking aloud. Both raptors tilt their heads at him and he takes another step. The raptors look at Claire, clicking and talking to each other. 

 

Owen realizes he hadn’t said out loud to stay in the sphere. He’d thought it. She wouldn’t have taken it well, which might explain his oversight. But, whatever, she’s standing at his side. Minimizing odors is undoubtedly smart, but he’s never wanted Claire to smell like him more. It crosses his mind to pee on her, but only very briefly. Too late for that anyway. Two extremely large animals trot toward them. He’s tempted to put up a directional hand, but doesn’t. He just waits. 

 

Simultaneously, Claire sets her shoulder in front of his and Blue halts at precisely springing distance. Delta pulls up behind Blue, not as neatly, but then she’s younger. When Owen agreed with Claire she does indeed protect him, he hadn’t by any stretch of his imagination included putting herself between him and two such large sets of teeth. 

 

“Hey, baby.” He says, extends a hand low, open palm up. Amber gold eyes absorb his presence, Blue’s familiar greeting. “Damn, it’s good to see you.” Blue’s head tilts all the way down into the palm of his hand and he traces his fingers up the scales along the side of her snout. She blows air down her nose on his chest. She ducks lower, gives him some side-eye and a soft nasally trumpet that sounds a bit like a scolding. He smiles. “I know. Couldn’t be helped. But you did fine. Just fine.” He suspects the raptors are somewhere north of crows and chimps in intelligence, even language acquisition. He has no idea if they understand his exact words, but wouldn’t be surprised. He cups his other hand under her throat and rubs. She rumbles, an outboard motor sized sound of contentment. “Good girl.” He murmurs. 

 

Blue lifts away from Owen, turns her attention to Claire, steps closer and sniffs. Sniffs at Owen, then back at Claire. One sinewy sidestep takes the huge beast up to Claire, a nose away. Without moving or even flinching Claire makes an involuntary hiss. Blue dips her head, looks at Owen and whips her tail through the air so fast it whistles. Delta sidles over to Owen and gives him a sniff. 

 

“What now?” Claire asks. Her gaze leaves the animals and narrows on Owen. To his utter astonishment, Blue and Delta do the same. Blue taps a huge center claw in the dust impatiently. 

 

Owen fastens his eyes on Claire. If the girls are going to comprehend his relationship with Claire, they’ll have to see it. Unless they can smell it. For good reason, the raptors are accustomed to having his undivided attention when he’s with them. Not looking directly at them when they are feet away is a radical departure for all of them. He speaks to Claire. “I’d like to peek in the house. Then we’ll see about them following us back to the park.”

 

Claire nods a combination of understanding and approval. In his peripheral vision he sees Blue turn from him to Claire and take a step backwards. No time like the present. He walks past the raptors through the yard to the house. Claire keeps pace, so at the stairs they go on up and in, leaving the raptors outside. 

 

The house is dark and it’s a wreck. Tension leaves Owen’s shoulders and arms when they reach visual privacy. He looks around at the mess, which seems to consist of mattress and cushion stuffing and shreds of his clothing. He closes his eyes, then looks at the mess afresh and sees they’ve made a nest. Fair enough.  He must not have really believed he’d see them again, because now he’s here with them, his mind reels with information he should’ve been thinking of weeks ago. 

 

“What do you know about pack hierarchy?” He toes some fluff away from the door.

 

“Dominance?” Claire asks. “I probably know more about humans.”

 

“Can you imagine an alpha pair?” He leaves the front door open, but moves further into the room. Weirdly, the books on the dining table are undisturbed. He turns to look at Claire, who hasn’t answered his question. She frowns. He explains. “Blue just deferred to you. Which means she doesn’t feel she has to defend her beta status. It also means she doesn’t think you’re below her in the hierarchy. Best bet, she thinks you’re my mate, the alpha female of the alpha pair.” 

 

“I’m your _mate_?” Claire’s expression clouds with responses he can’t entirely sort. Though he sees the whiff of disdain go by. 

 

“Okaaay. Uh... She thinks we’re a bonded pair, if that sounds better.” He offers. It sounds startlingly accurate, he thinks. He’s in way over his head on this. 

 

“I don’t know if it sounds better, but it sounds right.” She sighs. “What the fuck does it mean? In wolf terms, or animal terms. I understand the people terms.” The corner of her mouth rises, amusement tinging her sea green eyes. Gods, he thinks, I love this woman.

 

“Means we stay together. Means you can challenge me and get away with it. Means if I’m not with you, you’re still alpha.” Her eyebrows climb. He spreads his hands, searches for information that will help. “They’re babies, Claire. We don’t know what’s maturity for these animals, but Blue is eighteen months old and Delta is barely one. Chimps and humans aren’t fully mature until they’re 12 or 14 years old.”

 

“If ever.” She says.

 

“Given their intelligence and ability to learn, it would be ridiculously naive to assume they’re fully adult before three or four, more likely closer to the twelve. That’s why I can’t leave ‘em here. They can take care of themselves to a point. But they need grown ups.” He gestures around the room. “Why d’you think they’re in here?”

 

“Because they missed you.” She says slowly. “And they were hoping you’d come back.” She squints. “And this is the most of you they could find.” She wrinkles her nose. “Same reason I sleep in your dirty shirts. Damn it.” 

 

A chorus of demanding trumpets sound outside with a counter-melody of growls and clicks. Owen and Claire look outside. Both raptors are extended straight at them, staring. 

 

“Prey?” Claire asks.

 

“Or foe.” Owen answers. He lets go a curling shrill whistle and the animals wheel away, tails snapping. In a heartbeat they vanish into the jungle. “We should go.”

 

“With them?” Claire follows down the steps and they head for the gyrosphere. 

 

He grins wolfishly. “That’d be fun, but no. We should get back.” They reach the sphere and clamber in, hoisting seat belts down over their heads. 

 

“Won’t they be upset to find we’re gone?”

 

He turns and squints at her. Upset? He’d seen her utterly transform her grasp of the velociraptors in the moment they’d all three turned to him in eerie unison, and then when she’d realized why they were sleeping in his bungalow. The change in her concern from intellectual to actual, from sympathy to empathy, hadn’t been as visible. But, he hears it in her voice now. Animals are so interesting, he thinks.  “They can find us. We won’t be hiding.”

 

Claire sits back in the gyrosphere and lets the jungle whip past while she tries to label what she feels with the velociraptors. Certainly not safe or sure. But, not quite afraid either. She was afraid on the way out there, which is how she knows the difference. They are babies. That’s part of it. She’d visited the enclosure when the raptors were actually little. She has a faint recollection of cat-sized lizards crawling over a mountain a of a guy, eating some kind of disgusting raw meat mulch from his fingers. She’d been far too distracted by the man to really notice the beasts. She’d been so attracted to Owen when she met him she’d been mortified. Little raptors are in fact cute. In a deadly, sharp toothed way. She can’t make her reactions jibe. Yet. Cute notwithstanding, it’s not like they can take them home. Or stay here with them. She’s willing to bet they are not cute under most circumstances. Leaving them makes her brain hurt. She rubs her temples. 

 

“You okay?”

 

“Think so.” She wrestles her attention back to the present. 

 

Turns out the gyro spheres are skittish on pavement. When they reach the park road, Owen attempts to slow the thing to a gradual stop, but it skids over the asphalt like a toy until it hits a hat stand, rolls back a bit and rocks. The uprighting function works a bit too well, not really jibing well with what his eyes tell him. Claire has a hand on the wall of the sphere, white from the pressure she’s exerting, she looks even queasier than he feels. They rock to stillness and look at one another. The muscles in his jaw bunch. “I’d prefer a car.” He manages between his teeth. “Want to walk?” She nods.

 

From the flyovers, the park looked abandoned. What they hadn’t seen from the air was the fine film of leaf dust and seeds on everything, the weeds flourishing along and in walkways. The strange desolation of open shops filled with toys, cups, half in and half out of the weather, water stains puddling into the aisles. The salty air, bane of their daily work lives, has already begun eating at every metal surface. Although it’s empty of other people, the signs of their abrupt departure are everywhere. Doors stand open, phones, wallets, shoes, hats, pinwheels, wristbands everywhere amongst the leaves, broken glass and bones. Vehicles litter the walkways. As she does in dreams, Claire hears the screams, the gunfire, the shrieking, the roars. As she did then, she re-orients to the familiar rhythm of Owen breathing, turns off her memory. The rubber treads of their boots don’t make much sound on the pavement. They trot up the steps of the main building, through the lobby and up to the lab. 

 

“Ooooh, happy to see you two.” Barry calls when they come through the maze of unlocked security doors. “Did you find the girls? Comment vont-ils?” Barry has filled a table with tranquilizers, scalpels, suturing equipment, and somewhere got his hands on a bag of corn chips.

 

“They’re surprisingly well.” Owen says. “Asked about you.”

 

Barry grins. “Did they, now?” He puts his feet up on the lab table. “Do tell.”

 

“What did they make of you?” Eric asks Claire. Like all the guys, he’s fascinated by the very concept of communicating with velociraptors. Owen’s not sure why it’s so hard for people to imagine how smart the beasties are. 

 

Claire offers Eric a shrug and a half smile. She pulls her phone. The only people she wants to talk to are the boys. 

 

Owen and Barry talk through how they’ll attempt to get the beacons out of Blue and Delta. Eric follows intricate instructions around turning off the power generators. Claire sinks into a desk chair and taps up Zach. She tells the boys about the trip over, the hike, the park and the visit to the raptors in minute detail. “Owen?” She asks, a laugh in her voice. “The boys want to know where they are in our pack hierarchy.”

 

One prong of the plans Gray, Zach and Lowery have cooked up for the team is the release and herding of the goats, cows and pigs. The domesticated feed animals were all abandoned in grazing yards and enclosures. Easy pickings for the velociraptors, but well out of reach for the other predators. Unable to protect themselves or hide, they’re also not likely to eat well, breed or become part of a working, if weird, ecosystem. Eric and Claire get started on unlocking everything from the control room with Lowery’s instructions. 

 

~

 

Midday is steamy, sunshine turning the place into a microwave oven. While Barry, Eric and Claire unload the medical supplies from the jeep into the velociraptor enclosure, Owen whistles for the girls. From what he’s seen on the beacon maps, the girls spend most of the day between the bungalow and the enclosure, with some pretty long forays into other part of the park, but then back. He walks around the enclosure feeling oddly exposed. Of course, the last time he did this all the animals were locked into various enclosures, not roaming around the island. Footsteps behind him bring his attention around quickly. Claire materializes around the corner of the enclosure, a sat phone in hand. He opens his mouth to ask her not to wander around out here, please. The words die on his tongue when he sees the concern in her eyes. “What?”

 

“Rain.” She thrusts the phone at him.

 

“What?” He asks the phone. Tim. There’s a tropical storm blowing up, well south of the islands now, but Tim feels cautious, wants to bring them back. Owen protests mildly. Tim suggests go back to the mainland now, wait a couple of days and come back. Owen can’t think out here in the jungle with who knows what lurking nearby. He’s got Claire by the hand, walking back to the enclosure opening. “We’re gonna have to call you back. Five minutes.”

 

In the building, door closed behind them, Owen turns to Claire. She wrinkles her nose. “If we don’t do this now, we might not get back.” She says. “We should go ahead. If it’s too risky to fly later in the day, we stay until the weather clears.”

 

“Damn it.”

 

“That, too.” She nudges him toward the workroom.

 

Barry and Eric stand in the middle of the room, arms akimbo. “What do you want to do?” Eric asks.

 

“He wants to finish this.” Barry answers. “But, what did Tim say about the how much time we have?”

 

Owen shakes his head and taps on the phone. With Tim on speaker phone they wrestle with uncertainty. Tim assures them if he can fly he will. Owen wants to be fine with staying the night here if they have to, but the thought makes his stomach clench. Each of them has survived pretty much the worst the islands and the inhabitants can offer once. Twice seems stretching luck beyond practicality. 

 

A cacophony of barking outside snags everyone’s attention. Claire nods to Barry. “We should let them in, come on.”

 

The snorting, huffing arrival of the raptors brings conversation to a temporary stop. Blue dances around the enclosure, clearly hoping for a game. She bows and nips at Delta, they tumble off in a flurry teeth and claws. So tips the scale in favor of getting the beacons out of them at the very least. “Listen, can we just go for the beacons and see where we are when that’s done?” Owen asks.

 

The original plan was use wall harnesses to immobilize the girls for anesthesia. While Owen thinks he can get them into harness, it hardly seems fair at this late date. It also doesn’t seem fair to expect the others to walk into the enclosure protected only by his relationship with the girls. He grits his teeth. Work through this. “Eric. You’re in the observation room. If anything at all goes wrong, you’ve got the doors and the phone. I’ll go in with the anesthesia and see if I can get them down without tethering them. If that doesn’t work, we’ll put ‘em in harness. Once they’re asleep, it’ll take the three of us to do this.” Nods all around. Owen picks up the bottles, snout masks and syringes. My luck, I’ll put myself to sleep, he thinks. He saunters down the hallway and on into the paddock.

 

Blue whips around at Owen’s arrival and circles him. Delta hangs back behind her. Owen sets his supplies on the ground. “What were you two up to this morning?” He asks, conversationally. He raises his hand and the raptors come to attention. “Good girls.” He’s here without his clicker or rewards. He meets Blue’s golden gaze for a long time. When she looks away, he moves toward them until he can touch her snout. “Hey, there.” He murmurs.“You ladies been busy? Yeah?” He extends his hand down her long face.Her pupil slits widen to nearly oval, the clicking purr in her chest slows. Owen shifts his gaze to Delta, including her in the conversation. “Listen up. I need to take out the beacons in your backs.” He steps between the large animals, each six feet at the shoulders and weighing in at 300lbs. He traces the scar on Delta’s back. Blue tosses her head and honks. He pats her neck. “Which means putting you to sleep for a bit.” 

 

Blue's eyes follow him as he sinks to sit. He sets out gauze, a line of tranquilizer darts, unfolds the steri-pack holding scalpels, needles, thread. He narrates as he works, voice matter of fact. The girls are familiar with the soft snout-shaped plastic mask attached with two feet of clear rubber tubing to the canister of nitric oxide. Typically used while they're locked into harness, he did use a mask to sedate Echo in the yard once when she sustained a deep gash near her eye. He's betting on their recollection of that now. He pats his thigh. "Here we go. Bring it in. Right here. " He croons. Blue kneels obediently, followed by Delta, both animals wriggling down to lie close to him, noses touching his leg. He slips the mask on Delta's snout and loosens the valve on the canister slowly, evenly. Watching her closely, he keeps a hand on Blue. Delta's eyes drop closed and he tightens the valve. He soothes his fingers on Blue's head while they wait for Delta to fall completely asleep. He repeats the procedure then with Blue. Only when he's sure he's got two sleeping animals on the floor does he get back on his feet and motions Barry and Claire to join him in the enclosure.  
  
Sleeping is one thing, under far enough to cut on is another. Working efficiently, Owen and Barry use tranquilizer darts to knock the animals entirely out. Two quick incisions and the beacons are tweezered out. Claire mops blood away from the incisions. Two layers of stitches, interior and at the skin. Twenty minutes later they've cleaned up and left the sleeping animals curled in the enclosure grass.

 

Claire turns to Owen when the door of the enclosure snicks locked. She collides with him, presses her face to his chest. He lifts her face to his and rests his forehead on hers. “They’ll be up again within the hour. I hope. We’ll have to keep the enclosure locked until they’re alert. Then we can go.” He assures her.

 

Back in the observation room Eric has video chat open with lab at the compound where Gray and Lowery are tracking animals. Zach and Charlie are with Tim at the airport with a running commentary on speakerphone; there’s no animal activity around the enclosure and the weather continues to deteriorate. Owen posts up by the observation window, leaning on the wall, arms around Claire, listening and watching the raptors. 

 

Claire leans into Owen’s embrace, feels the tension of muscles coiled behind and around her. She fits neatly against him, head resting on his chest, his hands clasped at her waist. She covers his hands with hers, stroking his wrists with her thumbs in time with their synchronized breathing. She keeps her eyes on the animals in the enclosure. The raptors sleep in a curl, heads and tails tucked near an arm, like chicks. Owen explained they ought to have feathers. Apparently something in Wu’s recombination of genes resulted the leathery skin along with more teeth. She’d known at some level the animals in the park were designed, but hadn’t fully understood the implications until the I-rex left her enclosure. InGen hadn’t so much re-introduced dinosaurs to the world as created creatures that’d never lived anywhere else. She reels her thoughts in from ontological concerns to the practicality of getting back to the mainland. “What about taking one of the ferry’s back?” She asks the room in general. The staff ferries sailed in pretty rough weather all year long. She’s not sure how to sail one, but the sturdy crafts, much smaller than the guest ferries, seem pretty straightforward. 

 

Eric straightens in his chair. “Are there still ferries here? I figured they were all in use during the evacuation. That might work.”

 

“Maybe you’re right. But, most of us left on the cruise ships.”

 

Eric asks Lowery to queue up cameras on the docks. Zach turns his attention to pulling up information about the various boats, operations and weather conditions.

 

Claire feels Owen shake his head. She looks up. “Bad idea?”

 

“Not at all. Just marveling at your innate ability to get these guys working.” Owen says.

 

Barry laughs. 

 

Tim chimes in from the airport. “Good thought, but I’m not crazy about any of you trying to navigate out there in the dark and the rain. You’d need some serious instruments to get you back here.”

 

Eric glances at Owen with a shrug. “Between us, we’d probably do alright, yeah?”

 

“I’d want to see what kind of equipment we’re talking…” Owen stops talking and all attention turns to the enclosure. 

 

Delta has a nose under Blue’s chin, nudging. Blue’s eyes open and she gives her head a shake. The raptors stir slowly. Blue searches the enclosure, makes a low complaint. 

 

“Open it up.” Owen says. He releases his hold on Claire and pushes off the wall. “Be right back.” 

 

Outside the temperature has dropped and the wind is heavy with moisture. The tops of the trees whip noisily. Owen whistles, the shrill sound cutting under the percussion of the coming storm. Blue rounds the corner first, Delta on her heels. The animals sniff at the air, short barks between them. A few drops of rain scatter over them. Owen lets go another whistle, this one a release cue. The raptors wheel in unison and jog into the jungle. Owen stands in the opening of the enclosure, watching the place they vanished. Knowing they cannot be tracked electronically is better. 

 

When Owen returns to the observation room, Tim has made the decision not to fly. It’s up to them what to do next. A brief poll of the foursome produces consensus the most practical plan is stay in one of the hotels tonight. See what tomorrow brings. If the helicopter is still not a great idea, they can explore the boat options in daylight and perhaps a boat captain. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters may come more slowly; we're leaving the country for a couple weeks and I've no idea what the posting possibilities will be. Rest assured I'll be writing:) Thank you all for comments and kudos, which make me endlessly happy.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 narrative

 

The storm that floats between the Islas de Muerte and the mainland, kisses Isla Nublar’s eastern most coast, scattering rain across the narrow island. A faint halo of rainbows follow the storm’s far edges while wind and some lightning race up from the sea’s surface. The weather is noisy and pretty, uneventful as tropical rain goes. Claire often enjoyed watching storms dust over in the late afternoon. The park sold countless sheer ponchos and slick hats for just such occasion, offering visitors suggestions for how to enjoy a few wet hours at the park, indoors or out. 

 

While there’s some inherent satisfaction in knowing the two young velociraptors can no longer be tracked via beacons, the foursome on the ground on Isla Nublar is cranky and quiet. Rain falls heavily straight down at the velociraptor enclosure, pattering on the leaves and roof, creating white noise that damps out the sounds of birds of bugs. The enclosure, a large basic square, is short on comfort. The offices were built for observation of the animals. The rest is habitat. Outdoors habitat. Wet habitat.The raptors play a boisterous version of hide and seek in the enclosure, oblivious to the weather. 

 

According to Lowery, a large group of pteranodons are by the bay near the dock and a second group of has actually moved to another island, butT-rex is in the park. For the past three days they’ve recorded the T-rex in the park from late afternoon until sunset. Which is still several hours away. Of course, none of them know how that will play out in the rain. 

 

Claire bounces a pencil on its eraser, waiting for Lowery and Gray to update the location of T- rex. Owen paces the hallway outside the office. Eric rests his head on his arms, sprawled at a desk. Barry looks as if he’s sleeping, leaned back in a chair with his feet propped on a table.

 

Claire lets the pencil fall to the table, steps to the hallway and blocks Owen’s path. He comes to a full stop, stilling in the space of a breath. Energy radiates off him. She looks him over carefully. Brown curls, longer now, frizzed from the damp. Green eyes fasten on her. His shoulders square to her, up slightly. The drab brown t-shirt clings across his chest and ribs where his abs rise and fall gently. He is not much smaller than the raptors, maybe eighty pounds lighter he is in fact rather comfortingly huge. She snugs up to him, rubs her head on his shoulder, kisses his neck. “You okay?”

 

“Mmmm. You?” His voice rumbles under her ear. His arms come around her.

 

“Mmmm.” She replies in kind, okay being such a relative term. Nothing’s wrong aside from being stranded on a very small island with at least one creature who’d eat them between here and where they’d like to be. Again. At least it’s just the one and 20 thousand other people aren’t here with them. The screaming. She shudders, his lips caress her temple, his arms tighten. She’s also really hungry. The last time they ate was breakfast. 

 

He scoops her up without warning and carries her back into the office. Surrendering her weight and forward motion to him is always surprisingly nice. She ought to hate it, should feel out of control. Instead, she’s complacently safe and loved. He sits at a computer with her on his knees. “Come on, we gotta do something. Let’s play chess.”

 

They settle into a game of chess on the computer. Ian got everyone playing during downtime, and Claire and Owen are interestingly matched. Owen plays with careful deliberation no one expected, while Claire takes riskier strategies but wins slightly more often. Two-dimensional chess on a monitor is not the same and Claire struggles to have it make spacial sense for several minutes. Computer games hadn’t occurred to Barry or Eric. They pull up Spider solitaire and bicker about upcoming moves. The next two hours pass in relatively easy idleness. 

 

The phone rings, bringing them all to attention in an instant. T-rex left the park fifteen minutes ago heading steadily back up into the foothills. The pteranodons remain clustered in what seems like nests. None have been flying since it began raining hard. Time to make a move unless they prefer staying in the enclosure. 

 

The concession of using a jeep to get the medical supplies here seemed risky from the standpoint of possibly stirring up animals that haven't heard engines since the incident and a necessary protection from the fliers. With the pteranodons holed up due to weather, they reconsider the jeep. The thought of walking back to the park proper in a downpour is sobering, but the jeep is no protection from the t-rex. Driving around on her turf twice seems tempting the fates. Rain is far more appealing.

 

One good thing about walking in the rain is no mosquitoes biting, whining and generally making them miserable. It's raining hard enough Claire feels beaten on, albeit by teensy fists. Annoying. She can't help wondering if the blanket noise of rain on the canopy combined with the low visibility makes it impossible to know what's coming. When they get away from the enclosure wariness replaces speculation and her full attention rivets to the task and their path. The drive from the enclosure to the park takes about fifteen minutes. If they stay on the road, the walk will be an hour or perhaps a bit less.

 

As they tramp along the road away from the raptor enclosure Claire senses a change telling her they're being trailed by two young raptors. She wonders what she noticed. She can't hear them or see them. She glances back at Owen. He nods. A little surge of pleasure ripples through her. She growls low in her throat.

 

Blue's answering chirp gets a chuckle from Owen, gasps from Eric and Barry. 

 

"Merde." Barry curses lightly. "Where?"

 

"What was that?" Eric asks. 

 

"The raptors"

 

"Hunting?"

 

"Nah. " Owen says. "Mimicking. They're playing. They're behind us."

 

"Jesus. " Eric says. 

 

Owen shrugs. "Guaranteed to keep others away."

 

"Well, there's a silver lining." Eric grumbles. 

 

Claire laughs. In answer, Blue slips from the cover of brush ands falls into step behind Owen. Delta trots up to Blue’s left. Human pace isn’t very interesting for raptors, after several minutes of following Blue begins circling the group, examining Barry and Eric, dodging in and out of the brush, nudging Owen in the back. 

 

A few minutes of not knowing where the raptor will appear next and Eric stops walking, turns to Owen. “Seriously, man? Nerve wracking.” 

 

The rest of them slow and halt in the path. Owen grins, lifts a shoulder. He spent a lot of time training the girls to come. Not as much time trying to get them to run off. He can get them to hunt, but doesn’t have anything for them to hunt for. He suspects they’ve been lonely. They’ve had each other and lots of human company all their lives. They’re happy the humans are back. The thought causes a lurch of sadness in his gut. He dearly wants to get them over to Isla Sorna where there’s a 22 year old alpha female who might, might take them. He claps Eric on the back. “Other than get into the hotel, I’m not sure what to do about them. Hang in there.”

 

“We ought to take them and go release the prey animals while we have the chance. If the girls are with us, the prey will scatter and not just huddle in the enclosures. It’ll give them something to do.” 

 

All three men look at Claire with astonishment. 

 

“What? That makes sense, doesn’t it?” She puts fists on her hips and glares them all down one by one. Her change in tone and posture gets the raptor’s attention and they sidle over behind her. Blue yips at the men in an admirable imitation of Claire. Eric and Barry both back up, even as Owen steps forward. 

 

“Good idea, yeah. As long as there’s nothing happening over there.” Owen says. He inserts himself between Claire and the raptors, forcing Blue back several steps and increasing the distance for the guys. When did she start thinking of goats, cattle, poultry and pigs as prey?

 

“It’s not like we have anything better to do.” Claire adds.

 

“Like get a hot shower, dry off, or get some shut eye.” Barry grumbles under his breath. 

 

“Or find some food.” Eric says. 

 

“For fuck's sake, grow a pair.” Claire says. “We came to make this more habitable for the animals. What does it matter if it’s raining or not? We have plenty of time. And it’ll mean less to do if we ever get back.”

 

“And less left undone if we can’t” Eric concedes. “Alright already.”

 

~

 

It occurs to Ellie she ought to point the boys in the direction of dinner. She scrubs the top of her head, wavy strands of blonde hair coming loose from her braid, floating around her face. She looks over the maps on the table in front of her. She might now know the five islands better than she knows Oakland. She sighs. The entire jurassic project from conception has been nothing but sheer folly and quite possibly the most fun she’s ever had. For a moment she wishes John were still alive so she could tell him. Tell him he was right about one thing, dinosaurs stir imagination like little else. She shakes her head, a rueful smile playing around her lips. Her back and shoulders are stiff from leaning over the table. She stretches. She’s alone in the lab, the boys all over at the offices keeping track of their travelers and the weather. She yawns. She’s been juggling her mapping project and wrangling the teenage boys all day. A nap after dinner sounds appealing. 

 

She hasn’t paid attention to the weather other than the occasional ‘uh huh’ when Gray jogged over. She has a fuzzy recollection of Charlie and Zach going to the airport. The sky hangs low over the jungle, gray clouds tumble overhead and the air smells wet. No one’s flying anywhere anytime soon. She crosses the quad to the office bungalow. She hadn’t given much thought to what she was going to do if Tim wasn’t able to fly over to Nublar this afternoon. She’d really expected the weather to hold or the boys to risk the flight anyway. She sighs, picks up her pace. 

 

Lowery sits at the big desk against the wall in front of three large monitors and a keyboard, where one can fairly reliably find him day or night. Charlie, Zach, and Tim play cards at a work table, alternately watching the weather unfold on a monitor there. Tim and Charlie here instead of the airport doesn’t bode well for any more travel today. Ellie glances around for one more boy until she spots Gray asleep on the floor under Lowery’s desk. Her hands settle on her hips. “Can I get a sit rep before we scrounge up some dinner?”

 

“Hi, mom.”

 

“Rain and wind over there.”

 

“They’ve got the beacons.”

 

Charlie, Tim and Zach speak in unison. Ellie sorts this information as Lowery also chimes in. “They’re gonna spend the night in which ever hotel I can get unlocked. Be back when the weather breaks. Maybe in the morning.”

 

“That’s a terrible idea.” Ellis says, flatly. Four pairs of eyes focus on her. She moves to stand behind Lowery and gazes at the monitors. “Hang on.” She’s struggling to believe what she’s seeing. “You can see where the animals are on this thing, but you can’t see where the humans are?” 

 

“They have phones.” Lowery offers. 

 

Ellie shakes her head. Of all the stupid… no, not gonna help. “Well, would someone call them, please?”

 

The guys look at each other in a way Ellie doesn't like. She narrows her eyes. "What aren't you telling me?" She asks her son. 

 

Charlie straightens in his chair. "They're releasing the prey animals. Then, they're planning to sleep in one of the hotels and hang out there until we can get either fly over, or send a boat for them. That's it."

 

Ellie moves further into the room and perches on the edge of a chair. She hasn't been paying close enough attention to any of this. The price she's often paid for her single-minded focus. "Alright. What exactly happened this afternoon that they didn't come back when you saw the storm approaching?"

 

The guys explain the day's activities on the island. Ellie listens with narrow attention. She tries to balance the time issues, the needs of the park and the risk. She tries to recall anyone telling her Grady was removing the raptor tracing beacons, which has to be what Zach was reporting. She understands the raptor whisperer's intentions and might agree. She sighs. "Well, where are they now?"

 

Lowery toggles a camera view. People shaped figures, fences, lots of motion. A herd of what has to be cattle panic and run. The picture is smeared and gray through water drops and condensation. 

 

Ellie watches, brow creased. "Do us all a favor and let's not bank on someone being able to call if there's trouble. Get an open phone connection and you four rotate 15 minutes watching." When her gaze meets Gray's she says, "you're on dinner detail with me." 

 

~

 

The swine farm is furthest out from the park and seems to have fared best in the absence of stewards. Pigs of various sizes grunt, chortle and squeal in delight at arrival of Owen and Barry at the fences. There's no way to tell how many pigs there are, Owen thinks maybe hundreds. Barry lifts the lock post, Owen shoves the wide gate through the mud inward and so many pigs flow through the opening he hops up onto the fence to avoid tripping and trampling. The velociraptors, last seen gleefully chasing and snacking on chickens a half hour ago, tumble from the nearby jungle on a beeline for Owen. 

 

The pigs scream. 

 

Claire works the lock on the last of the goat pens. The goats have begun wandering away slowly, unaccustomed as they are to any kind of freedom. If any of them make it up into the foothills, they stand a decent chance, she thinks. Howling, squealing and blood curdling screams fill the air around her from nowhere. How? 

 

Her gaze snaps up and around, skin crawling with fear and horror. Her imagination fills with the sight of people running, scattering, dragged into the air, speared by beaks. Owen. She runs. Her vision narrows. Owen. Her headlong flight is arrested by countless pigs coming directly at her. The screams are now a wall of blinding red sound. The pigs? As if she's a stone in a stream, pigs part around her without pause, running in a widening fan down the path and into the jungle. The ground trembles under her feet for a second. Then again. Again. She knows this feeling, the unique sensation of t-rex running nearby. She pivots twice, considers her options, sprints toward the pig farm, running upstream through the fleeing pigs. 

 

Eric skins up the nearest tree as a stampede of pigs takes over the jungle floor. Screaming pigs. He sucks in air, his nerves frayed to an acute edge. There's a raptor calling up ahead. He wants the sound to be a comfort, after all it undoubtedly means Owen's close by, but the low trumpeting call sends shivers around his belly.

 

~

 

The newest sound coming from the satellite phone connection is unintelligible. "Uh." Lowery straightens in his chair. "Hey, um..." He begins toggling and tapping on the phone. "Shit. Hey."

 

Tim sticks his head in from the next room. "Dude?"

 

"Trouble." Lowery says. 

 

Tim is at his side instantly. "What?"

 

"I have no idea." Lowery says. He cannot, in fact, make sense of what he sees or hears. The blurred images and high pitched loud noise is alien. He squints. He knows Owen just opened the gate to the pig stye. So perhaps all the motion is running pigs. "Do pigs... scream?"

 

"Yeah." Tim answers, his voice so matter-of-fact Lowery looks over at him. Tim shrugs. "Yeah, they do. Everybody knows that. What's happening?"

 

Charlie saunters over. "What've you got?" 

 

"Not sure." Tim says. "Looks like the pigs started screaming when the pens were opened maybe."

 

"Probably the raptors chasing them."

 

"S'not the only things chasing them." Lowery points. The green blip on his smaller screen with the inscription Tyrannosaurus Rex 1 moves steadily back toward the park. 

 

Three sets of hands fumble for the sat phone. 

 

~

 

Claire spots Eric as he shimmies up a tree trunk. She shifts her trajectory toward him waving and yelling. He doesn't see her until she's at the foot of the tree motioning him down. The screams recede and she yells. "T-Rex. Get down. We have to go."

 

Eric obeys, dropping to the ground beside her. "You look way too calm."

 

"The pigs'll make it impossible for her to find us for a bit. Come on." 

 

At the pig farm all is quiet. Owen and Barry lean on the fence, the phone between them. Eric and Claire break into a trot. Claire watches Owen understand T-Rex is coming. his head lifts and his eyes land on her. His expression of relief mirrors what she feels. She ploughs into him. 

 

"Okay, we’re all here." Owen has Lowery on the phone.

 

"When the rain stops, the pteranodons will want their share of the loose food." Claire points out. "We should at least try for the hotel."

 

T-rex is not between them and the park at the moment, but her movements have been erratic and not clearly going any one direction. Owen turns to the others, brows up. Each of them offer some kind of ascent and he starts walking. Owen whistles for the raptors, thinking they'll be a better t-rex alarm system than the sat phone or micro tremors. He sets a brisk pace and the small group trots through the lightening rainfall back towards the park. Owen curses internally; he should've known the animal release would cause a predator party and taken precautions. Though he's not sure what precautions would be. At least there are lots of chickens, turkeys, pigs and goats running about to keep Rex busy and nothing else happening on the island to get her attention or irritate her. Pteranodons are another matter altogether. Here's to hoping a combination of smaller loose game and the presence of the raptors will keep the flying menace at bay.

 

Thinking about the raptors he wonders where they are. Chasing pigs? Shadowing them through the jungle? Owen whistles for them again. They'll turn up. He glances at Claire. She hikes beside him with her determined grace, her expression grim. He catches her gaze and she smiles.

 

~

 

Ellie is completely unsurprised by the blip of uproar caused when the pigs were released. What they hear on the phone is the rhythmic steps of the walkers against the backdrop of the patter of rain. The t-rex is in a stretch of jungle closer to the road than she likes, but there's exactly nothing she can do about any of it from here.

 

"Charlie, get on the boat question. See what you can do to find me a relatively large yacht with a pilot." She's finally gotten through to Alan, and takes her call outside. 

 

Charlie and Tim commandeer a computer and begin calling around. A large enough vessel to take out in the storm isn't likely in Quepo bay. This isn't LA. Tim's got one eye on the weather, because though it's still raining, the storm has passed, thunder and lightning has moved on and winds have settled. It's too dark to fly over now - but in the morning. Charlie agrees with the plan, but his mom is thinking about having to go get them tonight. 

 

"Sunset isn't for another couple hours. Maybe we can go..." Tim starts. Charlie gives him one of his mother's patented glares and they both break up laughing. 

 

Lowery trades off island watch with Zach and ducks into the kitchen for more food. Ellie has a laptop on the table, fingers flying over the keyboard. Lowery hesitates to interrupt her. He looks around for Gray with no luck. He realizes Ellie has no idea he's even in the room and moves to the fridge to make a sandwich. With a tall glass of milk, he takes his food back into the lab and perches on a chair at the table. Charlie and Tim lend commentary to their boat search, and nothing's happening on the island. Lowery keeps an eye on the t-rex beacon because it's his job and he can't help it. He cannot fathom the loss if anything were to happen to Claire or Owen. Or Eric or Barry, he reminds himself. 

 

Gray comes in from outside, sopping wet and grinning. "Hey, hey guys. I found us a boat." 

 

That gets everyone's attention in a hurry. Gray's practically vibrating with excitement. "There's a fisherman in the village who worked at the first park. He's willing to take us over if we need to go. He's says he knows where the docks are, so anytime we need him..."

 

Charlie reaches over and gives Gray's shoulder a gentle shove. "Here we are, going all high tech and finding nothing."

 

Gray blinks. "Well, nobody here has a lot of tech. I mean, you just gotta go ask people." 

 

"Obviously." Zach says. "Good work." Since they jumped off that cliff on the island seven months ago, Gray's confidence has steadily unfurled, and it's just awesome to see. 

 

~

 

Claire climbs the wide steps to the hotel door and leans against the door before tugging it to her. The door swings open easily, as if it hasn’t been months since anyone walked through it. They tumble into the deserted lobby and Barry collapses on the nearest sofa. Eric laughs. 

 

Owen grins. “I’m going for a bedroom people. Maybe we can reconnect, oh I don’t know, but later.” 

 

Barry groans. “I’m tired man, I’ll find a room in a minute.”

 

“You’ll need a keycard. We’ll need room keycards.” Claire says.

 

Owen sighs, pulls the phone from his back pocket and hands it to her. If it's not one thin, it's two. She taps up the lab and asks Lowery about getting into the rooms. She listens for longer than expected before moving across the lobby to the hospitality desk. Owen thinks if he lies down, which he’s dying to do, he won’t get back up for ten hours. He leans on a pillar, crosses his arms. Eric stretches out on the carpet. As much as he’d like food, Owen needs to be prone and quiet in a dark room for a bit. Preferably with Claire breathing on him. 

 

This feels weirdly similar to his first day on the island. He’d been in Australia when he got the job. Had hopped on a flight to Costa Rica with no idea what to expect. He arrived via ferry in heavy rain, been driven to a staff dormitory where he’d lounged in the lobby for two hours before someone finally showed up to sign him in. Used to not having all the information about a task ahead, he’d patiently waited through employee orientations, tours of the island, facility tours, and such. The laboratories were fascinating and Henry Wu had an aloof majesty about him, explaining the cloning processes, showing off velociraptor eggs expected to hatch within the week. Then days later, Owen was rousted from a decent sleep to come watch the first velociraptor hatch. He closes his eyes against the flood of memories, against concern for Blue and Delta, against curiosity about what’s happening in San Diego. Claire frequently tells him to meditate, which does work, and is pretty funny coming from her. Like she’s gonna meditate. A smile curves his mouth. Hardly. Still, he clears his mind, focuses on the breath. 

 

Expecting some quick relief, none of them is prepared to encounter guest rooms filled with personal belongings. Room after room of abandoned stuff from toys to technology, all of it virtually untouched since the park was evacuated. While people are being reimbursed for losses, apparently all their things are just sitting here. Owen reflects on how weird it’ll be in a couple hundred years when someone finds all this buried under top soil and vines. Like some kind of Pompeii. As she slips the keycard into lock after lock, searching for a clean room, Claire wonders how much it would cost to clean up. Frustratingly, they spend another half hour locating empty rooms. 

 

Haunted by strangers’ clothing, magazines, toiletries, shoes, jackets, hairbrushes, underwear for gods sake, Owen sprawls across the first king sized bed they encounter in a clean room. He has no idea what happens to the rest of them, his eyes slam shut, seconds later Claire snuggles up against him.

 

When Owen and Claire crash onto the bed, Eric and Barry are left in the suite’s living area watching the bedroom door swing shut. Eric glances at Barry, a mixture of exasperation and amusement on his face. Barry shrugs. The keycard stands in the electronic lock and Barry plucks it out. “Might as well go.” He says. “Unless you want to sleep on the couch.”

 

“I think there’s another bedroom.” Eric says, eying a nearby door. 

 

Barry shakes his head. “No, mon ami. Trust me, more of these luxury suites are empty. Come on.”

 

~

 

Dozy and damp, Owen rouses to awareness of Claire's scent, the weight of her curled into his side. He rumbles, a pleased sound, rolls to her and wraps her up, flexing tightly around her with his whole body. He kisses along the shoulder under his mouth, up her neck behind her ear. He nuzzles the soft frizzy curls at her nape. He feels the vibration of her purr under his arm before he hears it. Fills him with warmth. Makes him smile against her skin. He's tired, frustrated, a bit scared. Beneath ingrained absolute certainty he can get them all out of this, again, an undercurrent of deep unease prowls along his nerves.

 

Claire turns over. She winds her arms around him, fingers roaming up his neck into his hair, nails scratching lightly over his scalp. He arches his back a little more and growls. She presses deliciously. Tempted as he is to sink into her and get lost, he tilts her chin to ask. A kaleidoscope of green grey meets him with the same question. Her desire bridges the sliver of air between them, ignites everything inside him.

 

His hands tighten on her arms bringing her closer, he finds her mouth, her kiss searing through him. Her hands slide up his belly under his shirt, tugging up fabric, caressing, claiming. She puts a knee on his hip and rolls them, pulling the shirt over his head, then peeling hers off with a grunt, the bra going with it. She settles astride him, hands gripping his waistband, a corner of his mouth curves, she takes his breath.

 

He sits, hand behind her head and kisses her deeply, thoroughly, bringing the flurry of motion to a breathless searching pause. Her hand skates past his waistbands and wraps around his cock. Fire singes up through him on a groan. He growls impatience with the remaining clothes. He skins out of his pants. She climbs out of hers. He lifts over her, her hands are at his hips when he thrusts into her. His mind blurs with scalding slick snug satisfaction. She pulses under him, around him. She grips, clutches, tugs, coaxes his awareness from himself into the deeply demanding depth of her. Her heartbeat, her breath, the beckoning tide of her rhythms rock him in and up. 

 

Salt, grit, desperation and the acrid mix of their sweat echoes the first time. That late night exhausted moment she whispered his name, filled the cracks crazing through him with bright molten liquid golden desire. She'd nudged him into a family bathroom adjacent to the loading docks. He assumed to say something in private or have a moment of quiet relative to the mayhem of departures unfolding around them. Grateful for the moment alone with her he lifted his arms around her. She'd whispered his name just below his ear, pressed tightly to him. An entire world of hurt needy wanting, his name on her lips was a prayer.

 

His fully body recall of breaching her boundaries the first time is fresh and immediate as he arches into her now, quests toward filling her, vanishes into her, dissolving the flimsy barriers of flesh and time. She takes him, harder, closer, a cry arcing, close now. She clenches, cries, so close, then shuddering, shattering, shining delight. She comes apart beautifully, yanking his orgasm up through him, into her, through her, perfectly alive. Perfectly here.

 

~

 

The weather having settled and everyone having survived the night, morning light makes everything seem less desperate. Claire rolls over in bed, her limbs still tired from yesterday’s work. Owen’s asleep, his expression easy. She’s tempted to touch him, but she doesn’t. She closes her eyes again. There’s a boat and a chopper ready to snatch them back to the mainland. Aside from the raptors, none of the other animals noticed them yesterday, despite the craziness. Since the phone’s not ringing and there’s no knocking on the door, she determines it must be pretty early. Nice bed. She’s tempted to lie here until summoned. They’d taken a long hot shower last night before sleeping. A couple of ibuprofen would go a long ways. Her brain skips from thought to thought, letting her know she is well and truly awake. 

 

She sits up, puts feet on the floor. Owen doesn’t stir. She’s loathe to put on the dirty clothes from yesterday, but there’s nothing for it. She gathers up the offending articles and slips from the bedroom into the suite’s sitting room. 

 

Claire’s first call is to the lab, Ellie sounds ready to send in an army to get them, but agrees to hold off until they’re all awake. The pteranodons have nested closer to the docks than anyone likes for a boat rescue. The helicopter may still be the best bet if they can locate a relatively animal free landing site. 

 

Claire’s next call is to Karen, who’s been trailing Alan to various meetings for two days. Alan is making headway with the board of directors on the disposition of the islands. Not so much on giving up the technology that produced the dinosaurs in the first place. There’s a lot of arguing about how to make the technology profitable. The InGen security division wants to maintain a presence on the islands, as well as locate any surviving raptors on Nublar. Karen reminds Claire she can protect Claire and Owen, but not the raptors. Claire ends the call feeling deeply uneasy about the InGen security plans. Her experience is those guys act first, get permission later. If they are talking about wanting raptors, they already have some kind of plan in place. She’s gonna have to wake up the guys. They’ve got more work to do and the sooner they begin the better.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deep apologies for typos, as always. Hope you enjoy.

At 65 years old and six feet six inches tall, Ian Malcolm is not much for sitting on the floor. He can and when it involves his grandchildren he does. Now, as he surveys Henry Wu’s pretentious little tea set-up in the high-rise office in InGen Towers, the thought of folding up to have tea with this man threatens to give him indigestion. Alan and Ellie have given Ian strict instructions about being conciliatory with Henry. The thing is, Henry and Ian share a taste for condescension. Ian tries to imagine doing his work in some kind of proprietary secrecy, never boasting, never publishing. That thought also threatens to give him indigestion. 

“Dr. Malcolm. An honor.” Henry Wu makes his way across the spacious room, hand extended.

“Dr. Wu. A pleasure.” Ian offers up a firm handshake. “I appreciate you making time to see me.”

Henry Wu inclines his head. “No doubt Dr. Grant is anxious to make wide sweeping changes. It seemed prudent to sit down with his emissary.”

Nice try. Ian doesn’t let his eyes narrow. Emissary. “I’ve never been a fan of prudence. Occasionally, what’s called for is great daring. But, I won’t take up much of your time this afternoon. I hope we can forge a productive working relationship over time. I’m looking forward to that. Today, perhaps, we could talk briefly about our mutual friend John Hammond and his original dream of creating a theme park featuring animals cloned from ancient DNA.” 

“Of course, please, make yourself comfortable.” Wu gestures to an area behind the door, where the office widens out and includes a Western seating option. 

Ian teases out the story of how Hammond and Wu met. The picture that unfolds of a demanding Hammond with little patience for the intricacies of what they were trying to do sounds familiar. Hammond effectively spun a cuccoon of resource rich, if ethics-free, creativity around his lead scientist. Must’ve been intoxicating. Ian steers the conversation towards the various decisions to begin first patching, then blending, and finally designing DNA profiles. As they talk, it’s clear to Ian that Henry Wu is still cushioned by the insular InGen climate and Hammond’s dreams. Wu enjoys his work. He doesn’t spend a lot of time asking himself if it’s good or bad. To Wu, the work is impeccable. He sees himself as a genetic artist, who’s very very good at what he does. 

“So, if there’s no park,” Ian says, contemplatively. “What other uses do you see for this capability?”

Wu’s smile is confident. “So much. Really. Restoring near extinct species to thriving. Improving a particular genome to give animals resilience in challenging environments. The possibilities are endless.”

“You saw the headlines about weaponizing dinosaurs last week?” Ian asks.

“No. I don’t take the time for ephemeral pop culture nonsense.” Wu says, dismissively. 

“Surely you heard about those headlines. 

“Of course.” Wu allows. “They are meaningless to me.”

“But, you can see how they might not be meaningless to InGen. Or to the Board of Directors. Should such speculation or perhaps a change of direction affect funding, say.” Ian leads. Wu is a fascinating character, a mixture of brilliance with the stereotypical scientific myopia. In conversation with him, one would never imagine that the entire enterprise has hemorrhaged money and lives without profit of any kind.Like a spoiled child, Wu feels comfortably rooted in his tiny world view. 

“That, sir, is not really my problem. Now is it?” Wu seems genuine. His guilelessness, feigned or otherwise, is grating. 

“Whose problem is it, then?” Ian makes a mental note to find out exactly how the financial structure is anchored for Wu’s research. 

Wu makes a small gesture of unconcern. “I’m sure I don’t know.” 

“Then let’s see if we can shed some light on the situation and work our way back from there.” Ian steeples his long fingers and rests his elbows on the arms of the chair, his chin on his fingertips. 

~ 

The first moment of truth. When the velociraptors wake this time around they’re on a boat at sea. They went to sleep on the same boat at dock. Owen hopes there are enough similarities and his animals are curious and flexible enough that there’s no 600 lb mutiny.

The second moment of truth. All ashore who’re going ashore. The raptors more than rise to Owen’s hopes, interested in all the new surroundings, calm in the face of change. Amidst lots of barking, the girls skirt the edges of the bay, make brief forays into the jungle and back. During one of their ventures into the jungle, Owen walks back out the dock to the ferry and climbs on deck. When the raptors return to the beach he sends them a long release whistle. 

Third moment of truth. Three more velociraptors arrive on the beach, calling and honking. Blue and Delta give their attention to the newcomers, join the conversation. Owen likes watching the raptors talk, the politics, the subtleties. His girls are smart, clearly interested in other raptors. If this doesn’t work, he won’t know, won’t be able to fix. Won’t be here. Claire moves to the railing and he understands the urge. Like you can will them to be alright. Blue looks back at the boat. It feels like time to go. He lifts a hand, turns to Paolo and nods. The idling engines shift into reverse. 

The boat gears tug at Claire’s heart. She looks around for Owen, not knowing if she’s seeking or offering comfort, just knowing he’s where comfort resides.

Then, three things happen at once. A breeze lifts hair from her neck, sudden sunlight makes her squint, the deck disappears underfoot. She looks down, bemused to be rising gently into thin air. Owen, Barry and Eric retreat magically. If the expressions on the boys’ faces are any indication, something bad’s happening, though she doesn’t know quite why she’s weightless, swinging. Oh.

Hot air gusts over Claire’s shoulders with an Owen-like chuff of… affection? Utter disorientation and she’s face to face with Delta’s soft orange eyes, her stomach up in her throat. Snorting, splashing, stamping and a long honk wrap her in a blanket of sounds. Barking all around and behind her a long hair-raising growl. She grabs hold of her senses. She’s the very center of a lengthy velociraptor discussion. The back of her t-shirt, including her bra strap, are held in a long set of teeth, neatly dangling her from six feet up. Warm, leathery, buttery-soft lips caress her neck and the small of her back. Apropos of nothing, she notes velociraptor breath smells of green and minerals. Delta and three other raptors she doesn’t know are in easy sight. One of the raptors nearest her has startling candy green eyes showing deep curiosity. 

“Blue!” Owen’s voice, a low whistle, then he’s in front and below her, sopping wet, arms and hands up. Claire can’t help but smile. Owen’s face is a lovely combination of determined concern. “Claire? You okay?”

“I am.” She says. “Yeah. You be careful.”

His eyes close for a single second of deep consternation. He gazes pointedly back up, past Claire. “Blue. What’s going on?” His voice is low. “I need…” he starts. “You can’t…” he begins again. “Please.”

Claire makes a mental note to ask him what he was going to say later. Now, the raptors inch closer to him and Delta’s head swings around protectively. This isn’t a fight Claire wants any part of.

“Chhh. Shhh. Shhh.” Claire hisses. She reaches back, strokes Blue’s lip and snout, hands soothing and firm. Reaching as far as she can, she hugs Blue’s snout, leans back, rubs her face and head against Blue’s upper lip. “Down. Put me down.”

Another growl accompanies the lowering motion, brings Claire’s feet into precise contact with earth. Before Blue has fully released her clothing, Claire turns and puts her face on the raptor’s snout, gives up her entire weight for one more moment. She stands. “I’m going with them.” She explains. “I can’t really stay here. I’m going with him.” 

Blue noses Claire in the belly, backs her up a step. Owen flinches and Claire shoots him a stilling glare. Blue grumbles a long string of information Claire absorbs as protective doubt mixed with invitation. The noises vibrate in Claire’s chest and bones, tears prick the back of her eyes. Blue caws at Owen, scolding. Claire nods. “It’s okay.” Blue makes a low, crooning complaint, ineffably sad. 

A sharp calling bark comes from the jungle. Something bigger, Claire guesses, older. She nods at Blue. “You go.” 

Owen’s release whistle is soft and clear. Claire steps back. Blue turns to Owen, a low growl in her throat. “S’okay,” he says. “I really do need her. She’ll be fine.” 

Another sharp bark from the jungle and the raptors wheel in unison and trot away. A shiver of branches and they’re gone.

Owen’s arms close around Claire’s waist pulling her off her feet again. What is it with picking her up, she thinks. His mouth crushes hers and blurs thoughts into a grateful pastiche of longing. 

Eric hauls Claire into the boat. “What the hell was that?”

Owen climbs over the rail with the help of Barry’s strong grip. 

Claire shakes her head. “Ask him.” She points at Owen. “He’s the expert.” 

“What happened?” Barry asks.

Owen shrugs. “Whatever it was, it’s over. Let’s get the hell out of here.” He leans back on the railing, crosses his arms over his chest. His eyes fall to Claire sitting on the lifejacket box. A sliver of a thought slices up from the bottom of consciousness. Right now it’d be a relief to be further away. For all he knows, they swim.

What he’d like more than anything would be to take her apart, piece by piece, until he’s absolutely sure with his own eyes and hands she’s okay. Every inch. He singes her with his gaze and she glances over, surprised. He has no idea what he’d done if… if… no, even coming close to it whites out his vision. Her hand slips under his arm, grips his wrist and squeezes hard. He feels her trying to tether him to her very real presence. He lets his eyes fall to her hand, neat and square. She’s fine. They are fine. The wet mist in his face seems a good indication they are headed back to civilization. Barry and Eric give him several sidelong glances before moving to the cockpit above. 

Beside Owen, Claire begins to shake. Adrenalin cascade, he feels it, too, bordering on shock, achy tremors in his major muscles. She nuzzles his chest, seeking. He bends to meet her kiss. Her mouth is pliant and possessive. Fingers curl behind his neck. He opens his arms, lets her near, and things inside him begin to snap apart. 

He’s not sure how they get from the railing to the below deck door, though he knows she opens the door and nearly falls down the stairs. He catches her, hovers on the step while she finds her balance. When she turns to step down, he tugs her t-shirt up and away, his hands splay across her back where four pink grazes, each an inch wide, stripe her skin from shoulder to waist. At the foot of the stairs, he presses his mouth to the back of her neck, grips her shoulders as she faces him. He drops a line of kisses across her collar bone to her sternum, cups a breast, hands settling on her ribs. He drops to his knees, tattoos kisses from her belly button down, nuzzles his forehead on the silky skin between her hipbones, breathing in the inviting scents of her. She allows this slow passage, her hips rocking very slightly, her hands in his hair. She has, recently, smelled and tasted different. No, not different; more. Another layer of flavor, pleasingly dense. He presses a kiss to her, understanding what the raptors know, why they want to take her, how she became theirs. She’s pregnant. 

Her small moan nudges him present and he wants to tell her. Ask her. But she’s done with his quest, has hold of his arms, shoves him backwards with hands and hips. Her trousers drop to the floor and he unbuttons his. She backs him until his calfs hit a cushion, he registers the bench, then she lands on him all hands and mouth and delicious weight. She takes him into her on a sigh. He can do this, too. Digs his fingers into her hips and plunges up, deep, long, hard. She clenches wickedly around him, her heels press his thighs, her grind bends his mind to spaces of pure sense overload. Yours, he thinks, body and soul. Yours. His thoughts stutter there, suspend in the blissful tidal rise of her passion. She starts to come apart, presses hard to him with a whimper of surrender that sears straight through him. He tightens, arches and spills into her, his chest contracting with the power of letting go. He gathers her, savors her quaking aftershocks. Her mouth snags his in a long, slow kiss. 

“Mmm. Scared me.” She whispers. “Thank you for coming to get me.”

He brushes hair from her face, looks into her eyes. Of course, he wants to say. Always, he thinks. His thumbs trace over her cheeks. He puts his mouth firmly on hers, a growl coming up. “Scared me, too.” He says. 

She nods. She slips away, gropes around for her pants. He hitches his jeans up and zips. He retrieves her t-shirt from where he dropped it a few feet away. He lifts her chin and kisses her again, can’t get enough. She nips his lower lip, kisses his chin, tugs her shirt over her head. Her eyes hold him, the sea green possession of her gaze brimming with belonging. He takes a long grounding breath. He’s probably wrong. If she’s pregnant, she’ll tell him. 

~

Karen calls again before they finish cleaning up. She doesn’t want to hear anything about moving raptors or any other illegal activity. She wants to know if Owen agreed to action figures.

“I’m sorry, what?” Owen asks.

“Look. I’m texting you a picture.” Karen’s voice fades a little, then returns as the photo comes through. 

Owen stares at… he turns it sidewise… dolls. An action figure and the figures of four velociraptors. The packaging says ‘Owen Grady and the Raptor Squad.’ He frowns, “What the fuck is that?” 

“That’s what I thought.” Karen mutters. “Damn it. Okay. Do you have your original employment contract?”

“Not handy.” He’s still looking at the picture. The little action figure is dressed like him, but doesn’t really look like him. Looks like GI Joe of the jungle. 20,000 years ago. His employment contract is probably on the table in the bungalow. On the island they just left.

Claire takes the phone from him and examines the photo. “Merchandising. Whoa.” She gazes back up at Owen, handing the phone to Zach. Karen’s voice on the speaker moves a little further away, outside of sense making. Claire watches Owen’s expression go from startled through confused irritation and he glances over at her, features softening. “I’m pretty sure they need your express permission.” She offers. She doesn’t recall slipping any merchandising clauses into the standard employment template. But then, she wasn’t hiring the animal handlers. Surely not. The phone makes its way back to Owen and he clicks off the speaker, raising the instrument to his ear and walking several steps off.

Claire moves toward Zach and Gray. The boys look amused and she can’t help the smile she shares with them. Owen will be fine. 

“Think there’s one of you with T-Rex?” Gray asks, a hopeful note in his voice. Zach grins.

Claire tilts her head. Wait, no. Her brows gather. “That’d be…”

“Be pretty awesome.” Gray says. 

The thought of being an action figure doesn’t feel remotely awesome. It feels rather creepily public. “Hey.” She goes after Owen. “Hey.” Now she thinks about it two seconds longer she’s not sure she wants her… her… her Owen on some kid’s lunchbox either. She takes the phone from Owen’s hand. “Karen. What the hell’s going on over there? Can they do that? Can you stop them?”

It’s all well and good to have Alan and Ian at InGen trying to influence the future direction of the corporation. Someone needs to get on point with marketing and business. Claire sighs, her head tumbling with thoughts about what she’d be doing if she were still at work. The corporation pressure to have measurably excellent brand recognition, alongside steady increases in park visitors and increasing profits was always aggressive. Merchandising was always seen as a way to pay for more whimsical initiatives. Like gyrospheres. They just left ridiculous quantities of memorabilia rotting in the tropical sun. Who will Claire need to talk to about salvaging and selling that stuff instead of trying to develop new merchandise?

Someone somewhere is still trying very hard to make money. As they should be, she concedes. It dawns on her she thought the entire corporation would be bankrupted and closed. Karen’s not worried about the action figures. If he’d been a character in a story, they’d own that. But he’s not, and they don’t. She needs to do some additional research on legal precedents, she also has a colleague in the firm who can help. Between the lines of their conversation, Claire hears the question of what she and Owen want. Another month and Karen’s plan is to take her boys home for another school year.

Claire hands the phone back to Owen and takes a moment to gaze around the lab. It feels empty without Ian’s goofy presence, Lowery’s observation station is quiet for the first time in weeks. 

Ellie’s prognosis for the two islands isn’t terrible. The animals have almost enough space. There will be some attrition. But, the system has a chance at stabilizing. A decent place to leave it. If it can be left. It’s time to go back to San Diego. She’s hard pressed to think of it as going home. This isn’t home either. Her gaze falls on Owen, still taking to Karen, sitting on the edge of a desk. Home.

Zach inserts himself between Claire and Owen. “Are we going?”

Claire focuses on him. “We should, don’t you think?”

He nods, glancing from Gray to Lowery and back to Claire. “Can we have another day?”

“For what?” The guys look around at each other again. Seemingly trying to decide who’s going to tell her whatever it is they’re thinking. Her gaze narrows. “Gentlemen?” 

Consensus falls to Lowery. He scoots to sit up straighter and clears his throat. “Um. We figured we might want to, um, erase the beacon chip data from the metadata.”

Claire’s brows rise.

“Seemed like the least we could do to help protect the place, ya’ know.” Gray says. 

“Can you do that?” Claire asks.

Lowery shrugs. “Of course. The trick is do it so they can’t trace it back to us.” 

“Take all the time you’d like.” She grins. 

~

“856 days is a pretty long time.” Gray says. He drops into the chair opposite Owen at the breakfast table.

“Good morning.” Owen glances over. “It is. Depends. What are we talking about?”

“For you. Since Blue.” 

The corner of Owen’s mouth rises. Gray, of course, knows the number of days since Blue hatched and offers the data as possible justification for the odd untethered feeling Owen woke with this morning. Owen chuffs. Since Blue. The phrase rattles around his brain, a weird watery feeling of absence. “Or one.” He says.

Gray eyes narrow. “Yeah, but that’s not how you’d count.” He’s not as easily put off a topic by teasing or thought puzzles as he used to be. “It’s not like she died.”

Touche, Owen quirks a brow, takes a moment to measure the intent in the icy blue eyes across the table. Gray sees through him, but often has no idea what he sees. Information comes easily for him, meaning - not so much. Owen takes a long swallow of milk, considering. “Like I said. Depends. Blue hatching changed everything, so yes. Leaving her on the beach yesterday was another kind of responsibility, though.”

“But, you wouldn’t have that responsibility if she wasn’t hatched. So, 856.” Gray concludes. 

It’s tempting to let him have the point and finish breakfast with no more introspection. Since Gray, Owen thinks. He leans forward slightly. “Not arguing, just adding some nuances. Inside the feeling of how Blue changed everything for me are these other smaller sadnesses, like watching her take off from the beach. Trying to accept I won’t see her again.” Owen suspects Gray doesn’t have such fine grained emotions or doesn’t recognize them. 

Gray’s expression glazes slightly while he attempts to calculate new information that has no numbers attached.

Owen reaches for a more Gray friendly explanation. “So you get how when you watch an airplane fly, you don’t necessarily appreciate all the nuts and bolts of the machine, or the details of the physics.”

“Yes.”

“Like that. Just sticking a label on the biggest piece of a situation you can see doesn’t get at the finer elements of the experience. Sometimes you have to manage the discreet feelings you’re having at the moment you have them.” Owen leans back in his chair. “It’s the opposite of not being able to see the forest for the trees.”

“Can’t see the trees for the forest?” Gray smiles a little, beginning to put the concepts together. “Which happens to me all the time. But not to you?”

“Happens to everyone. Both ways. But no, not so often as for you, kiddo. It’s easier for me to go back and forth.” Owen admits. 

“You feel sad about leaving Blue.”

Owen sighs. “Today, yes. I feel relieved, too. She’s safer than she was, she’s smarter than she needs to be, and we’re all safer apart. But, yes. Sad about leaving her.” 

“You’re not leaving us, though.”

“No, I’m not.” Owen wonders if this was where they were headed. “That’d be crazy. We’re safer together.” He snags a piece of toast from Gray’s plate. “Your mom’s gonna be very serious about you going back to school, though.” He takes a bite of the toast, then points to Gray with the half moon shaped bread. “We all need to get on board with that.”

Gray huffs, tackles the other slice of toast. “Stupid.”

“The law.”

“And she’s a lawyer.” Gray recites, mimicking Karen’s lecture voice. 

“Exactly right.”

~

Throughout Claire’s adulthood there’s been a long string of moments when she stood somehow adjacent to a group of people, watching as they moved away into their intimacies. Sometimes she felt proudly independent, other times wistfully lonely. She came through those moments on many the crusade to conquer something, hence two masters degrees and a rise to director of a billion dollar enterprise. Not too shabby. Not too bad, indeed. If asked, she’ll admit feeling a bit afraid leaving Las Islas Muertes might become another of those moments when this group of people disbands and she’s left to carve out some path for herself. She knows she can ride her friendship with Alan and Ian to a pivotal role with InGen. And there’d be plenty of consultant work if she wanted. Make a living is something she can do.

She’s not sure exactly when or how she became aware of the tiny wink of another life inside. She’s even less sure when Owen knew, although she’s pretty sure he beat her to understanding. In her imagination - the one where she met a nice boy, got married, bought a house, planned a pregnancy - there is a tableaux where she says they’re having the baby and he’s surprised and delighted. When Zach replaces her tea cup with a glass of orange juice and a second glass of water, Claire realizes the entire pack knows, has known. She flashes on the heat of Blue’s breath on her back. The osmosis by which they’ve accommodated another life into their web of relationships is seamless if unspoken. She needn’t worry about being left. She needs to worry about her sister’s attempts to shoehorn her boys back into school in Wisconsin in four weeks. But she can’t worry about that today. She’s got two more bites of porridge in her bowl, then more organizing to get the plane and its cargo to San Diego this evening. 

Amidst the gathering and packing, conversations rise and fall, shifting steadily toward the future. Returning to work, making plans to talk, visit. Barry takes Eric up on the offer to try out expedition guiding for an upcoming excursion to Belize. School starts next month for the teachers and students in the group. They plan to meet here in Costa Rica in early October for a long weekend. The last of cleaning up, stowing equipment, last minute checks that everything is off, up, closed or locked. The business of heading home takes on its bittersweet perfunctory routine. They play cards on the flight up to San Diego, where goodbyes become jumbled with rides from the private airport to SDIA, juggling luggage and promises to call or text. 

Owen shepherds his crew from the plan to the jeep. Backpacks, suitcases and several equipment boxes he doesn’t recognize make it into the rear. Gray chirps along about De Rarum Naturus to an oblivious Clair and Zach, who clearly have no idea what he’s talking about. Claire is on the phone with Karen, then passing the phone back to the boys. Seems Karen will meet them at the condo. Owen ponders who’s given the kid Lucretius, has to be Ian, unsure which way to take the conversation. Deeper metaphysics or needing gas for the trip home. Home being one of the longest standing mysteries Owen reckons. For which Lucretius would advocate simplicity and pleasure, so… the condo. Or wherever Claire is. Or whenever they’re all together. Or… still a little mysterious. Owen smiles. He's never been a loner, always preferred the tangles and wrangling of a crowded house. Claire still seems occasionally stunned to find so may lives pressed up against hers. But, at the moment she appears content, seems snug in the mix, which is all he wants. 


	8. Chapter 8

Alexandra Hammond Murphy spots Dr. Grant at a table and waving away the maître d, she makes her way across the restaurant, a huge smile on her face. Alan Grant gets to his feet at her approach. He’s considerably smaller than she remembers, but otherwise looks exactly the same. She accepts a kiss on the cheek.

“Lex. It’s good to see you.” Alan Grant is also in a suit, sans hat, looking the part of the brilliant professor. “Thank you so much for agreeing to come down.”

Lex is tall, a willowy blonde in a well-fitted plum colored suit. “Dr. Grant.” She kisses his cheek in return.

“Please, call me Alan.” He pulls a chair out for her. “Look at you. All grown up.”

“Thank you for keeping me up to date on everything.” Lex says, sinking gratefully into the chair. It’s been a rather long day. The flight from LA to San Diego capped off a day spent in court listening to her opposing attorney talk up a judge he apparently went to law school with. Everything is about who you know. Even sitting here this evening.

“I appreciate your being even willing to consider talking to me.” Alan orders drinks and starters for them while they catch up on life since they last saw each other more than twenty years ago. Niceties taken care of, conversation turns to InGen and the empty position left open by Simon Misrani’s death.

“I can do some handholding with the board of directors. Actually, it’s pretty compelling. They’re an interesting group of characters. But, I can’t run a corporation, for goodness sake. More than anything I want someone who can run this thing I trust. Someone who isn’t trying to either entertain the masses or make a fortune. That’s why I really need you to consider taking this job.” Alan concludes his part of the hour-long conversation.

They’ve talked about the corporation’s assets, the current mission, and the silos of purpose between R&D, security and accounting. Lex’s decade of work as an environmental engineer and lawyer complements her two decades of fascination with her grandfather’s beasts and businesses. She never sold her shares of her grandfather’s estate. All of which has resulted in her being approached for this position. All about who you know. Or are related to. She has information about InGen, Jurassic Park and Jurassic World at her fingertips in the forms of an excellent memory and reports on her tablet she refers to with easy dexterity.

“I’m flattered.” Lex says. “And god knows I’m interested.” She puts her tablet down, and smooths the fabric of her skirt. “InGen has resources that could be utilized for lifesaving biomedical and bio-environmental research and development. The chance to helm something like that…” She smiles, a healthy portion of her grandfather’s sweet charisma bubbling under the polish of keen intelligence. “It’s an amazing opportunity. I couldn’t make a decision without meeting with board and staff, but, I’m interested.” She also needs to have a long conversation with Claire Dearing. Alan doesn’t say anything about Claire’s tenure as the park director, but Tim has been insistent about Lex’s need to talk to Claire.

Alan squires Lex off on an in-depth tour of InGen facilities, a chance to spend a little time discussing each division. Ian joins them for cocktails with two board members. By the time she’s settling in her hotel room, Lex’s brain reels with details.

~o~

In the weeks and months after the Grant project team returns from Costa Rica, the former InGen park employees - all of whom signed ironclad non-liability employment contracts preventing them from suing the company - receive monetary compensation in the form of five years salary.

Owen’s inbox attracts requests for all manner of projects. Every offer banks on his wanting to use his animal wrangling skills. Which he doesn’t. Guilt from his complicit betrayal of the velociraptors leading to death and abandonment lingers, casts long shadows. Having the resources to say no comfortably is welcome. He has no idea what the next phase of work or life will look like. Nor does he know what he wants it to look like aside from needing whatever it is to include Claire.

Claire’s long sojourn with InGen drifts to an end as Lex Murphy transitions in as CEO. She watches Alan and Lex begin the slow process of turning the company into something new. Their manipulation of the mission from entertainment to environment is admirable, though Claire has no illusions they’ll succeed. Claire hopes they will. With Simon dead and the company using every form of media at its command to focus on saving the environment, traumatized staff, survivors and relatives of the dead see her as a viable target to despise. She can hardly argue the point. She essentially surrenders her public identity to InGen, legally bound to shield her, her email, mail, phone numbers, even her license plate vanishes. It feels like failure.

Messy compromises around the boys churn along in uneasy cooperation. After weeks of bouncing back and forth between Karen’s hotel rooms and Claire’s condo, Zach returns to Wisconsin with his parents to start his senior year. Gray refuses to go back to school at all. Newly obsessed with metaphysics and his recently located confidence to face the world, he operates on his own internal rhythms. Someone is always trying to sort out travel plans between Eau Claire and San Diego.

Claire loves having Gray for weeks at a time, which surely doesn’t help the problem. Owen is more whole when Gray’s with them. How can she not want that? During a particularly long stay Owen convinces Karen to sign Gray up for a distance learning high school, promises to supervise and tutor on this end. Owen is a demanding task master, insisting on literature and history alongside math and science. He takes Gray and Claire to New York City for a week of museums, theater, and concerts. They walk the city until their feet get sore, talking about history, architecture, graffiti, street musicians and transportation. Much of the time they have Zach on video-chat, until he finally makes the break and joins them. Karen fusses until Billy joins them and talks her into coming. Suddenly a family again, even only for two days, feels right. Claire doesn’t have a single thought about work or lack of work.

The first and second visits to the obstetrician are awkward. Claire watches as realization who they are sifts through the office on the first visit and it just feels wrong to have her legs spread as the nurses whisper and their communication with her cools. Gray, sitting decorously behind her, chatters away about fetal development. Owen holds her hand, weaves his fingers between hers, rubs her palm with his thumb. When she starts shaking the doctor asks if she’s cold and she lies and says yes. It’s worth it to see gray scale images of a little monster with a huge heart thumping swiftly.

The next visit feels more practical. If nothing else there’s no paperwork and no boys. Now there’s talk of hospital, classes, and other public feeling activities she dreads. They meet the other doc in the office, just in case, and the sensation is so overwhelming Owen ends up doing all the talking, which doesn’t seem right either. More than anything she wants the little critter to have a content and relaxed environment. How in the hell did she get to be someone’s environment anyway? When the nurse practitioner begins talking about pre-natal yoga, Claire’s eyes fill. She presses her face to Owen’s shoulder and hears kind words about the emotions of pregnancy.

Later, she dreams of a cranky teenager climbing out of her chest, stomping on her, trying to run from an I-Rex. She wakes up short of breath, sitting straight up, guilt coursing through her with the adrenaline. Pregnancy dreams muddle with park dreams make her wish for the insomnia that has long since disappeared. By the time she’s fully aware, Owen is there with a cup of water and tissues. She tells him about the dream while he eases her back into the pillows, soothing a hand along her back, kissing along her hairline. Eventually, she slides back into sleep. 

Owen’s thoughts teem with memories of the ultrasound, small monster critter with a huge heart thumping in her, or his, center. The visceral weight of utter commitment. Not so different from the feeling when he understood his parents had died. Amidst the searing sense of abandonment, the faces of his younger brothers looking at him, each one different, each one with an identical expression of attachment. To him. The sudden knowledge that if he goes down, he does not go down alone. He doesn’t miss family. Never has. Was happy to extricate himself. There were simply too many of them, too much need too young. He loves them, which is different. The nine of them, all within six years of each other, made a tribe to be reckoned, still do on the rare occasions they’re all together. He curls around Claire. She doesn’t wake up anymore when he flexes around her, instead burrowing closer. Perhaps the most reassuring kind of affirmation next to her gaze. More than he’s ever dared want or deserved.

The doctor was bemused by the event of Gray’s detailed narration, Zach’s silent attentiveness. Her only comment was nephews at an appointment was a first for her. Owen wonders if anyone will disabuse the woman of her assumption Claire and Owen are fostering the boys. Wonders if there’s a life somewhere in the future without notoriety. If there’ll be life without the immediate specter of so much death. He saw it in the face of a young med tech, the unfairness of Claire and Owen celebrating new life when they’d been the cause of so much loss for others. Or, perhaps he’d simply projected that onto the girl’s face. Gray downloaded an ultrasound picture to his phone and labeled it ‘Foxtrot.’ The reference to Owen using the NATO phonetic alphabet to name each raptor after Blue doesn’t escape any of them and Zach now refers to Gray as Golf as a term of endearment.

Claire has nightmares of large things coming out of her. Interesting, though she wakes up panicked. He only feels easy when he’s touching her. Not always the most convenient response. But, right this moment, she’s tucked up in his arms and he can feel the weight of her leaning against his chest, the rise and fall of her breath, the softness of her skin under his hands. He could use some sleep. Even if he doesn’t sleep, he needs the rest. He consciously relaxes, one muscle group at a time. Slows his breathing. It’s barely possible to bring his awareness completely present. She smells faintly of bergamot, mandarin and amber.

~o~

 Zach feels as if he’s a person inside a person. He’s definitely watching the football game unfold around him while laughing at Jordan’s joking and holding Erin’s hand. At the same time, he’s outside all this, seeing himself pretend. Checking messages from Gray in San Diego on the way to dinner with Claire, Owen and Alan. Messaging back and forth with Charlie at the Air Force Academy down in Colorado Springs after a long day of basic training. He likes where he is well enough, while wishing he was with them all. It’s eerie.

He has a certain kind of renown these days. He survived the park, has seen dinosaurs much closer than even his friends who’d visited the park. Was on TV every day for a couple weeks with Claire and Owen at the trial. He worries about everyone blaming Claire for what happened. He worries about her blaming herself. He’d rather be able to keep an eye on her. He wants to be confident Owen will take care of her. But Owen’s in love with her, needs her in some tangible way that makes him a little blind. Owen needs Claire to be okay. And Gray, Gray is still such a freaking space cadet. He can’t watch out for anyone. Zach shakes his head, which gets Erin’s attention. He waves her off.

The home team scores and people around him begin jumping up and down, clapping and cheering. Zach plays along, enjoys the rousing band salute. It’s a beautiful night. Cold and clear, the air dry and crisp. He feels the chill on his cheekbones and fingertips. Nice.

Gray, he thinks. It may take the kid a while to figure out the social realities around him, but when he does, it’s nuts how quickly he assimilates. He’s gone from being afraid of nearly everything to extreme comfort in the world. Last week Gray took the bus from San Diego to San Francisco on a whim to see Ian. Alone. Amazing. Although Zach is loathe to tell mom. Gray will eventually be just fine.

Beside Zach, Erin lifts his arm around her shoulders and snuggles in. This ought to be the best thing ever, he thinks.

~o~

 When the tool in an Armani suit, representing the InGen marketing team, asked Claire to consider allowing the company to license her name an hour after her father called she began to understand she was gradually ceasing to exist.

This evening Claire hugs her knees and enjoys the various weights and pressures of Owen, Zach, and Gray all leaning. In a previous life she didn't like creatures on her, not really even humans. Now she’s surrounded and invaded by other humans, pushing from the outside and the inside, with gentle and possessive insistence. She enjoys the gratitude percolating through her. Without them there’d be no her. She rests her head on Owen’s arm and closes her eyes, cataloging the experience. The butterflies beneath her belly may or may not be Foxtrot. The weight on her ankles is Gray, who’s crossed his legs and rested them on hers. Her backrest is Zach, propping her up on his bent legs while studying, government, she thinks.

This evening's homework for Gray is Shakespeare at an open air stage in Balboa Park, high school students on stage, the grass full of family and friends. _A Comedy of Errors_. Claire wants to tell Owen what the marketing guy suggested, wants to talk through her dad's phone call. He was never further than a room away, but he's not much of a ‘talk things through’ person under the best circumstances and with the boys both here the moment just hasn't presented itself. Tonight, she thinks.

No job, no job offers, no job ideas. As lovely as it is to have money in the bank, it’s oddly de-motivating and though she knows she has a couple of years to utterly turn this around for herself - find a new career, home, life - she feels uninspired. Karen lectured her for years that she’d become her job and, as always, Karen was correct. Claire reaches for a handful of popcorn and munches.

The pretty night along with the pretty language is more pleasant than she’d imagined. She’d agreed to come to avoid spending the evening at home alone. Mental spinning about the disaster of a day she’s had is inevitable. At least she can enjoy the company. She wriggles around, causing all three of the guys to re-adjust as she settles between Owen’s legs, leaning back on his chest. Owen gives the bucket of popcorn to Gray, who sits up and crosses his legs. Zach flips onto his belly and continues to read. Owen’s arms come around her, his big hands resting on her thighs. She sinks into meditation on the cool breeze off the Pacific lifting the hair off her face, iambic pentameter, and she considers her father.

Bobby Dearing worked his entire life. Claire and Karen heard the stories from their grandmother and mother. Their father grew up on a farm, weeding the vegetable garden as soon as he could walk. Got a job at twelve over at the general store. Drafted at eighteen, his tour in Vietnam included the fall of Saigon and the evacuation. He came home from the war and took a job at the VA hospital as a janitor. Night school, a wife and a daughter later he was promoted to an administrative position in operations at the hospital. More night school, a second daughter and a master’s degree later saw him transfer to the position of operations director at the river authority.

Not that Claire ever heard a single mention of any of that from him. Claire knows her father as a shadow in the night, a childhood rumor, her mother’s joy. Claire knew her mother’s cancer was terminal when she arrived home from college to find her father sitting at her mother’s bedside. There he stayed until Rosemary Dearing was in a grave behind the little Baptist church in the woods. Then he disappeared into the Alaskan wilderness for a job as the Director of the Division of Forestry. Claire looked it up on the internet one day when Karen accused her of turning into dad - not as a compliment. She didn’t recognize him in the picture on the state’s website. When did he grow the beard, grow gray, grow old. Then again, she didn’t recognize her nephews less than a year ago when they arrived at her park. This makes her queasy, acutely aware of how essential their two bodies present are for her now. The unexpected, inexplicable, and delicious comfort of her father’s voice on the phone this morning saying, “hi, baby. Been seeing a lot about you on the news lately.” If he’s calling, she’s worried him.

Owen’s hands move up Claire’s thighs and cross over her belly, then she’s enfolded. His voice rumbles softly near her ear. “Okay?” Warm breath and lips on her neck. She shrugs and nods, feels his arms flex around her, knows she’s confusing him. She fixes her eyes on the stage, admires the costumes, begins watching the play, relaxes. She closes her eyes and listens for bit more before drifting into a light sleep.

Sudden applause wakes Claire with a start. Behind her, Owen stands, he extends a hand at the same time Zach does. Grinning, Claire takes both hands and let’s them pull her up. She expects to rise to her feet and nearly makes it when her vision tunnels and goes dark.

Claire crumples, her hands slipping away from Owen and Zach, landing in a heap on the ground and spilling backwards. Owen’s breath leaves his lungs as Claire falls away from him. She’s suddenly pale as ghost and gone. His chest tightens.

“Oh no.” Gray hits his knees. “Aunt Claire?”

Zach flashes a glance at Owen, hopes Owen will remain upright. “Claire?”

Owen sucks in a breath and sinks to a knee. He slides a hand under Claire’s wrist. She’s breathing, her pulse ticking steadily under his fingers. Her arm is cool to his touch.

Claire’s eyes flutter and open. She sighs. “Whoa. Guys? What?” She whispers.

“Are you okay?” Gray’s big blue eyes fill her line of vision.

“I don’t know.” She closes her eyes again, shifts until she’s lying flat.

Owen takes this as a good sign. Nothing broken. Looks as if she fainted.

“Are you hurt?” Zach bends close.

“I don’t think so.”

She may not think she’s hurt, but she’s not getting up either. Her color isn’t great. Doctor, Zach thinks. Hating the idea of an emergency room, he pulls out his phone and taps up 911. He pats Gray on the shoulder and stands to keep an eye on Owen. In any other circumstance, you’d want Owen on the job, but Claire out of sight for more than twenty minutes can level him. Zach has no idea how Claire on the ground is going to go. Can’t be good.

A woman walking by stops, has water. She squats to offer Claire a drink. When Claire lifts on an elbow to swallow, Owen manages a movement. The 911 operator wants Zach to stay on the phone and he agrees to not hang up but he needs to talk to Owen. He double checks that Gray and the lady have Claire and he focuses on Owen. “Hey.” He wraps a hand around Owen’s arm. “Hey.”

“What?” Owen flicks a glance at Zach, then back to Claire.

“Breathe.” Zach says.

“Yeah.”

“She’s okay. There’s an ambulance coming. You okay?”

Owen’s jaw bunches. “I’m fine.” He shakes his head in contradiction to that thought. He puts an arm under Claire’s and supports her while she sips cold water. She’s trembling. He’s amazed he isn’t. He’d like to scoop her up off the grass. She’s finally sitting up, legs crossed. She rubs her forehead. After far too long her sea green gaze comes to him.

“I’m so sorry.” She says.

Owen’s heart breaks. What is she talking about? He frowns, shakes his head. “How’re you feeling?”

“A little light headed.” She says. “Little shaky.”

What actually arrives is a fire truck, no siren, but lots of lights and two EMT’s. Backing away to give the EMT’s access to Claire is one of the hardest things Owen has ever done. Another step backwards and he runs into Zach, who doesn’t give ground. The boys, right. Owen assesses the boys, who look okay, a little concerned. His gaze swings back to the bit of Claire he can see, a shoulder and feet, on the other side of the paramedic. The unfolding medical equipment isn’t helping much with the nausea. How, he wonders, has he managed to put in danger again. Gray’s hand in his brings Owen solidly back to the present reality and calm eases through his system like cool water.

An ambulance rolls up. Owen looks around and sees the park has emptied of play-attendees. He loosens his shoulders and squats beside the paramedic next to Claire. The delight and pleasure in her eyes when she’s able to meet his is as good as a kiss. Better. The paramedic glances over. Owen smiles at Claire, brows up.

“She’s fine. Seems she fainted.” The paramedic says. “Her blood pressure is extremely low. We’d like to see her get checked out by a doc.”

Claire looks mutinous. Owen’s mouth twitches back a chuckle. “Not a bad idea.”

Zach follows the ambulance at the wheel of Owen’s car. Gray taps a foot on the dashboard. Zach’s unsure how to fix this, but it’s ridiculous to leave the two of them alone. He can’t imagine how they’re gonna take care of a kid. Zach’s pretty sure one of the first rules of parenting has got to be stay upright. Mom… he laughs.

“What’s funny?” Gray demands.

“Wait til mom hears about this.” Zach scrubs a hand through his hair. Gray’s guffaw is appropriate.

It’s after midnight when Owen finally slides into bed behind Claire. She rolls into his embrace, snuggling tight under his chin. She’s had a nasty day and where was he? He drops a kiss on her hair. Close, but somehow not close enough. In the ER, waiting for the doc and a sonogram, she told him about the issues with her name and the call from her father. Tears streaking her face, part tired, part scared, her hand resting on her belly, a protective gesture he’s not even sure she was aware of.

The tests all showed a healthy critter and a tired Claire. Her blood pressure has fallen so low three people couldn’t find it and the doctor wasn’t sure how to respond. She’s lost weight. He can feel the bones of her wrists in his grasp. He caresses the palm of her hand and her fingers close around his. He keeps putting her at risk. He trained animals that tried to kill her and then tried to keep her. He presses his forehead to her shoulder. She is a wonder of fierce fragility. A miracle of frightened bravery. Now the life growing inside her appears to being trying to consume her. He spreads his hand between her breasts, feels her ribs.

Claire turns in his arms, lifts her head and hands, frames his face, her mouth on his, hot and sweet. “Come back.” She whispers.

“I…”

“Stay with me.”

“Always.”

Her leg comes over his flank, a bare foot perching on his hip. Her fingers slip up through his hair. He kisses her back, drinks her down. Her skin is warm and silky under his hands. Desire careens through him with near blinding intensity. The taste of her reassures and invites. She rocks against him. “Need you.” She says.

Need you. He wants to answer, but it comes out a chuff of possession against her throat as his fingers tighten on her hips. Words dissolve with the wet heat of her pressing. He tries to push away the cobweb of doubt that clings in his mind. He does not want to hurt her, cannot lose her. “Claire. 

She responds by pressing closer, the damp heat of her on his cock sends a zing of pure fire up his body. “Need you.” Words he cannot resist.

He tucks his hand under her knee, lifting her leg further, slides into her on a sigh of pure pleasure. Her gasp and clench nearly undo him in the best way. He grunts restraint and moves with her gently, so slowly. The happiness of being here where she is rolls over him. “Love you.” He growls against her mouth.

She purrs, the sound low in her throat. She tautens around him, scalding slick, and so good. He rolls her beneath him to bury himself snugly into her. The shudder under his arms as she comes apart is the only bliss there can be and it takes everything in him to move tenderly into her depths. He keeps an easy rhythm despite what he wants and the ache in his groin, his muscles quake with the deep thrill of filling her, fitting to her. His orgasm hits him with breathtaking power, pulling a groan from him and a laugh from her as she pulls him tighter, rocks him through it, wraps around him until she blurs into him and he has no idea where he ends or begins. Just here.

~o~

Owen sifts soil over the rocks in the bottom of the raised planter. Over the past months, he's landscaped the small yard behind the condo with a two terraced rose beds. He replaced the patch of grass with crushed granite into which he created a circular pattern with flagstone. The raised bed is for an herb garden. But, at the moment he's considering a drip irrigation system design. Apparently, despite the years of military training and a first-rate education, he is still a farmer's son.

A long shadow falls in front of him and he looks over, offers Zach a smile.

"Hey.” Zach sinks onto the hammock strung across the corner between the fence and porch.

“Hmmm?”

“I need to talk to you.”

Owen brushes the loose dirt from his hands and turns to face Zach, leans back on the planter frame. "Okay.” Through the glass doors he sees Claire's feet crossed at the end of the sofa.

“We can’t just leave you guys here.” Zach starts. Owen’s eyes narrow. Zach backs up. “Gray and me’ve been talking about wanting you guys to move up with us. We can’t leave you guys here. There’s no reason for you to stay here. Is there?” Owen pins Zach with a piercing gaze. Zach glares back steadily. “I gotta go back to school and Gray needs to get back to our folks. Everyone here knows you and stuff keeps coming up that’s not good for you. You’re not getting any better here. I’ve been looking online and there are a couple of really nice places close to mom’s you could rent. Then… well, we’d be close.”

“What does Claire say?” Owen deflects for a moment to think. He knows Zach will always talk to Claire first.

A flicker of a smile crosses Zach’s mouth. He shakes his head. "Haven't said anything to her."

"You guys don't think I can take care of her."

"Well, if something is chasing her, yeah."

"But?"

Zach sits up and puts his feet on the ground so he can look back at Owen steadily. "This doesn't seem to be going so well."

Owen glares, nonplussed. He doesn’t have a good answer. The kid is right. The kid is a kid. While he watches, Zach’s expression flickers concern and then resolve. Owen appreciates the challenge of a kid telling an adult there’s a problem. He doesn’t appreciate being said adult. He relaxes the glare and slowly nods. “Okay. Fair enough. Tell me how moving up with you is going to improve things.” He hates hearing the edge in his voice. Hates seeing Zach’s tiny flinch.

“Claire would be farther away from the muck.” Zach says. ‘“We don’t even have paparazzi in Eau Claire.”

Smart move to make it about Claire, Owen thinks. If there are two people more devoted to Claire on the planet than Owen and Zach, Owen hasn’t met them. Less hounding and moving Gray back to his parents has instant appeal. Owen is ashamed nothing like this has occurred to him. He’s been so mired in getting through every day he’s lost the long view. He drops his gaze to the ground to have his thoughts to himself for a moment. He’s tempted to ask Zach to let him talk to Claire. He’s also tempted to brush the kid off. Just face saving, he knows. He contemplates the gravel a moment longer. “Good idea.” He says. “Go tell Claire, see what she thinks. And, send me the link to these places you’re talking about.”

“Excellent.” Zach says.

Owen senses Zach spin toward the door. He doesn't look up. His gaze shifts to his boots, though he's looking past them into nothing. It is not one of his life aspirations to live in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin. Wasn’t one to live in the middle of nowhere Afghanistan, either. Or, Costa Rica, for that matter. The last place he chose to live was probably Annapolis. Claire in the midst of a lot of people who love her, and far from InGen, sounds delicious. Claire is a person one follows. She expects to be the decision maker, doesn’t always respond well to outside opinion. A smile curves Owen’s mouth up, he loves every meticulous, controlling, defiant cell in her body. Probably time to take her on again. To do that, he’ll have to take on himself first.

The shrink has been trying to get him, both of them, to use something called eye movement desensitization and retraining to unlink the physical symptoms of anxiety from certain memories. Specifically, the shrink insists he has to unlink losing sight of Claire from physical panic. He’s read a bit about the therapy. He hasn’t wanted to admit to anyone, much less the shrink, his reluctance to let go any piece of his relationship with Claire. But, he’s willing to risk the loss to protect her. The thought crosses his mind that Claire will kill him if he goes to the shrink alone. Because she’ll think he’s abandoning her. The next thought is the realization she knows better. His head spins a bit.

The obstetrician was considerably less baffled than the ER doc by Claire’s faint. She surmised pregnancy has revved Claire’s metabolism slightly past what is considered best. She prescribed Claire double her calories and sleep. Easier said than done. 5000 useful calories and sixteen hours of sleep every twenty four hours isn’t easy to come by. For three days, Owen has been stuck in his role of comforter in chief. He can do better. He will do better. He pushes off the planter and goes inside.

When he finds Claire in the bathroom, face in a towel, she leans into his embrace. She mumbles into the towel. He’s unsure if she’s crying or talking. He lifts her face to his.

“This isn’t my life.” She says. "I want my life back." Her face is wet and pink from tears. Her green eyes are glazed, not anchored to him.

This is what she means when she says she doesn't exist anymore. He knows she feels dislocated, possessed, gone. “I know.” He wipes tears away with his thumbs. “I’m sorry.” He kisses her lips, light but lingering. “This isn’t my life either.” He takes the towel from her hands and soothes her clenched fists against his chest.

“Zach talked to you?” She asks.

“He did.” He accepts her weight when she nestles her head on his chest, under his chin. He lets a hand trace up her back and neck, drawing her close. “He’s right about needing to get the hell outta here. I’m not sure where to go or what to do. But, if you will trust me to take care of you and make some decisions, I’ll happily do that.” She doesn’t answer nor move away. She presses her face to his chest. He feels hot tears seep through his t-shirt. Her breath roughens, she swallows. The helplessness he feels begins to wane against hers. Work through this, he thinks.

He wants to pick up her up and carry her to bed. He wants to make love with her until neither of them can think. He reaches around her for a paper cup. “Come on.” He coaxes her a step backwards in order to fill the cup with water. He hands her the cup. “You need to answer me.”

She looks up at him, eyes shiny with tears. She sips water, takes a deep breath that eases out on a sigh. “Of course I trust you.” She says.

Owen chuffs amusement. “I’m gonna go see Dr. McClure later this week.”

“I don’t want to see her.” Claire looks confused.

He shakes his head. “Not us. Just me.” He pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. An excuse to touch her. “Gotta get past the panic attacks and back into the real world. Zach’s right in one way, wrong in another. We have to get better and get the hell away from here. But we can’t run. Whatever business we have with the island, we need to sort out.”

She tilts her head, her eyes dry. “What d’you mean?”

“Claire, we raised a bunch of dinosaurs and promised people magic. All that led to was dinosaurs and people getting killed.”

“Well, not us personally.” She protests.

“Yes. Us personally. That’s the problem. Us. And if we don’t make it right, we’ll make ourselves sick.” As he says it, he realizes this is why it never crossed his mind to pack them up and move to oblivion. “You and me, we’re not the people who crawl off with our tails between our legs and go live a blameless conventional life. We’re still the people who got in this mess in the first place. Sitting here licking our wounds isn’t gonna work. You and me, we do things. Gotta get whole again and go do something.”

“But how?” She sniffs, gestures around them at the bathroom fixtures.

“Not sure yet. Can you eat and sleep and let me try and figure it out?” Sounds like an easy question when he asks, though he knows it’s not.

Her nostrils flare, either from irritation or because she wants to laugh. He can’t always tell which way it will go, those feelings can run close for her. He smiles. She narrows her eyes. “Yes.” She draws the word out in grudging reply.

~o~

 

Lex Murphy glares at Henry Wu across her desk. The man does not burst into flames, which is probably good, though slightly disappointing. She transfers her gaze to the view of San Diego and the Pacific out the floor to ceiling windows and takes a breath. “It might be best for you to start at the beginning, Henry.”

“Everything is in the report.” He answers smoothly.

“No.” Lex splays a hand on the desk top, leaning forward. “This report says that 20 years ago you cloned my grandfather.”

Henry nods once.

Lex’s jaw clenches reflexively. She tilts her head, narrows her eyes. “This report does not say a single thing about why, with what authority…” She pauses. Gods know she can guess. She shakes her head. “Or, with what success. There’s nothing here, for example, about the exact process, the outcome or what happened to this… person.”

“The process, like all our processes, is proprietary. Of course, cloning from a living creature is relatively simple. There are no gaps to fill, and my own technology is quite advanced, so there are no errors associated with such a direct process. That process was successful in creating a viable zygote. That’s all I know.”

“What do you mean that’s all you know?” Lex hears the urgency in her voice and attempts to dial it back. “You simply handed my grandfather a live human zygote with his precise DNA and that was that?”

Henry offers his best superior smile. “In a freezer container. But, yes.”

“And you have no idea, no hint, what happened.”

“None.”

She stares him down.

He shakes his head. “It was none of my business. Still isn’t.” He lifts a shoulder.

Lex flips through the folder on the desk in front of her. The summary of InGen’s bio-manipulation technology and products is relatively straightforward, if vast. They’ve created 27 species related to dinosaurs of various eras. They’ve cloned pandas, tigers and trout. And, it seems, a person. They’ve developed equipment capable of the finest of fine tuning at the level of DNA and RNA. They’ve eliminated a surprising amount of tissue rejection issues across species. When put to good use, the intellectual capital alone has the potential to advance medicine into the space age. Lex runs through it all in her mind as an antidote to killing or at least firing the man on the other side of her desk. He’s brilliant. She suspects he has the conscience of a house cat, what do they call that? Ah, yes, compensated psychopath. He and her grandfather were a dangerous combination. Still may be. Perhaps the good will one day outweigh the bad. “Alright, Henry. I’m sorry I got us a little off-track there. Let’s continue. What we’ll need to do is find additional real world applications for each of these technologies. I have some ideas, but I’d like you and your team to come up with the first set of proposals. We’re looking at November for a first look.” 


	9. Chapter 9

Half of Zach’s plan works. No one is moving to Wisconsin, but Owen is turning back into the guy who rescued them from lots of teeth with surprising quickness. When the tether breaks between Owen and Claire it is tangible, tactile. One day they’re connected by line of sight and strangely in sync and the next day they aren’t. Oh, they are still clingy and mushy beyond all reason. But the air clears of desperation. Weird. Welcome, but weird all the same. Zach redoubles his watchfulness. He hadn’t realized Owen’s need to see Claire was a one-way thing. All four of them needed to be together, felt more complete together. All four of them had anxiety sickness of some sort after the park. Maybe not Gray. Unless confidence was a form of anxiety. No, that can’t be right. All four of them had nightmares and flashbacks. So it seems very odd that Owen changing has changed everything. Turns out keeping Claire in Owen’s line of sight was a huge job they’d all signed up for. Now he doesn’t need it anymore it’s like everyone suddenly has more freedom, more time, more space. Weird.

Claire balked and complained, but she’d promised Owen she’d let him have some control. With the ringers on all the phones in the house are turned off, Claire sleeps twelve hours at night. She takes a morning nap and another in the afternoon. When she’s not asleep one of the boys is offering her food. It takes several days to discover the pleasing power of the smoothie. Owen concocts a delicious variety of smoothies, mango, rose, coconut, chocolate. He swears they are good for her and they’re delicious. By day five she feels like a new person. Or rather like two new people. Foxtrot takes up gymnastics, adding to the eerie experience of being occupied. Claire’s pretty sure a woman thought up the Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Alien during pregnancy. The boys remove television from the house and Claire’s new phone number is only given to immediate family. Even the research team and InGen have to go through Owen to get her and that’s not happening very often.

Two appointments with the shrink and Owen lets go some unnamed something. Another visit and all the visceral reactions to losing sight of Claire are gone. His thoughts still reel and remember, but the muscle-freezing, nauseating, quaking tremors of panic vanish. Miraculously, he still loves her. He’s no longer the only thing standing between her and messy, bloody, painful death. In combination with losing her to stagger hours of sleep, he wanders around feeling unmoored for several giddy days. Owen knows nutrition. He uses the coffee grinder to pulverize nuts and seeds that are added alongside coconut oil and yogurt to make ridiculously high-calorie protein smoothies for Claire. A couple days of sleep and fuel and she looks like herself again, albeit slightly curvier. The kaleidoscope of urgent needing, wanting, pleasure, fear is still with him. It’s just not making him physically ill. When he described this to the shrink he got the first genuine smile and she admitted there was nothing to be done about that, that’s what being in love is like.

In the mornings, Claire, Owen, Zach, and Gray take a long walk on the trails through Balboa Park talking. They talk about Zach’s lack of firm college plans, whatever Gray’s reading, Claire’s aversion to anything with vinegar, Owen’s motorcycle. They also talk about more important things. Claire and Owen talk through the possibility of moving to Eau Claire, they all talk about the importance and sometimes impracticality of being together. Eventually they talk about the park. They slowly recount everything that happened the day they became a pack. They speculate about what’s happening on both islands. They discuss what they know about InGen’s plans for the future. Days pass, Zach’s departure looms. He’s been doing his school work, but exams are coming up and he needs to be present for those. Two days before his flight out Gray decides to go with him. When they leave, the motions of separation are easier than before, less fraught and not filled with plans to reunite.

“For a bit there I didn’t think they’d leave you alone with me.” Owen comments, pointing the jeep away from the airport towards the city.

“I know,” Claire says.”I’m sorry.”

Owen frowns. Claire feels guilty about too many things, things that aren’t her fault. Email and text messages blew up last week when Charlie Sattler-Lee began contacting the original Costa Rica Team with his desire to see everyone during his Thanksgiving break. In Costa Rica. The request brought such a huge grin to Claire’s face Owen fired back assent and began making plans. He hopes being with the team again in the tropics will bring opportunities to discuss potential futures in addition to alleviating boredom.

~

Lowery Cruthers, at loose ends since coming back from Costa Rica, put a daily news feed together to curate any and all news reports on InGen, the park, or the animals. He forwards anything of interest to the team. There’ve been no new pteranodon sightings on the mainland, but it can only be a matter of time. Media interest in the park inhabitants hasn’t waned, nor has speculation about the future of dinosaurs on earth. With nothing else pressing to do, Lowery compiles all the information from Ellie about the potential of the islands as a sanctuary. He also checks in on the island via his high jacked access to the video feeds and security system. He has a seedling of a thought about starting a grassroots social media campaign to protect the animals.  

He does not want to do anything to undermine Dr. Grant’s team, though. He chews on his thumbnail. He’d like to talk to Zach, but should probably talk to Claire. What he’s best at is dithering. Well, no. He’s really good at game design. He sits up. Queues up Ellie’s data projecting the ecosystem cycle on the islands. What if there was a way to have the park without visitors? He shoves his glasses up his nose and lights up his old version of Unity3D with a maniacal laugh.

Three weeks of non-stop coding and images come up of two boats anchored off Isla Nublar. Lowery rubs his eyes and blinks at them for a long moment trying to decide if he’s looking at real time images. He begins toggling through the camera views. There is a group of seven men on the island right this minute. Weird. He taps the back of his phone. Who the hell are these guys? He taps Claire’s number into the phone and gets an InGen message. He looks at the phone. This second blip in his assumptions about today causes him to come completely out of programmer brain and back fully into the world. He’s hungry. He shoots a text to Zach and gets back a new number for Claire. He’s dirty, too. He sighs. He wants food and a shower. He presses in the new number and gets Owen.

Owen taps on the jeep steering wheel and tries to recall ever having this kind of free time. Now she's fueled better Claire's only sleeping 14 of 24 hours. Only. He grins.  The amount of free time he has now is ridiculous. He’s tuned the bike and the jeep, cleaned the house, shopped, checked out the local library, called his sibling, crept out onto FaceBook. He’s considering taking up crochet. He laughs, takes a right. Lowery’s apartment is somewhere in this forest of apartments. Owen’s been here twice before but the damn complex still doesn’t make any sense to him.

Climbing the four flights up - there’s an elevator somewhere, but Owen can’t remember where  - Owen contemplates Lowery’s agoraphobia. His own tunnel vision was so tightly focused on Claire he hadn’t come close to understanding anyone else’s ailments. Including his own, he acknowledges. He knocks on Lowery’s door smartly before turning the handle and letting the door swing open a few inches. “Heya,” He calls as he pushes the door open.

“Back here.” Lowery’s voice comes from the back of the apartment.

Owen heads to the back bedroom Lowery uses as an office. The apartment is a spacious three bedrooms with lots of windows. It’s also immaculate and orderly. Clean lines of modern furnishings, lots of books and electronics on shelves. The open bedroom doors reveal beds made up nicely and large tropical plants. The office is the only room with any semblance of disorder, the chaos that is Lowery’s working mind on fuller display though even here the space is bachelor neat, not fussy.

Lowery is on his feet. “Hey, man.” Offering an enthusiastic firm, if awkward, handshake.

“What’s up?” Owen asks. Lowery’s text this morning had been brief but insistent.

Lowery pulls up his chair and sits in front of three large plasma displays. Owen notes the upgraded equipment with a smile.

Lowery is glaring at his screens and typing furiously. “There’s hunting at the park,” He says. “I didn’t know who to report it to. Or who knows.”

Owen watches images flash up on the plasmas, realizing in a crash of information overload that Lowery is still hooked into the park CCTV, the people up there in jungle camo with rifles are on his island, and everything on the island has grown. A lot. For several long seconds, Owen’s mental gears jamb up with the business of taking in the multiple squares of video feed. He casts around for a chair, finds one and pulls it over, needing the visual break, then he sits and looks back up. He orients to the video feeds and looks closely. “S’that some kind of militia?” He tries to make sense of the weaponry and the way the guys move. Like guerilla fighters.

“I have no idea.” Lowery mutters.

Owen watches a while longer. “What are they hunting?”

Lowery turns his head to give Owen a long stare. “I have no idea.”

Owen stares him down. Lowery's probably 20 times smarter than he lets on. 

Lowery blinks rapidly and shoves his glasses up his nose. He readjusts in the chair. "Okay." He begins pulling up various video files. "Pterodactyls have gradually moved to Las Cinco Muertas. Less predators more food less competition for the food. But, a small group of them are still on Nublar, making occasional runs on the beaches. So this could be some kind of effort to stop them. They've been threatening." News articles in Spanish flash up on the screen. "Ingen was over four times since we left. Not sure what all they're up to. Some simple reconnaissance and logistics. They finished cleaning out the labs and all the file on their proprietary shit. So they're not likely to care as much if anyone's over there." A webpage comes up. "Then there's this. Found it last night. Wacko."

The picture heading up the webpage shows a weathered man in jungle camo standing on the head of a dead stegosaur. Owen’s stomach clenches, as if you couldn’t walk up to one and shoot it. The accompanying text describes an exclusive hunting expedition for ‘expert’ hunters. Owen looks back over at the cctv images. “Could be.” He narrows his eyes. “Anybody over at InGen know you can see this?”

“No.”

Owen nods. “If we tell them, they’re gonna want to know how we know.”

“Yeah, well. I was thinking about designing a virtual park tour. If they go for that, the public will be watching and it’ll make it hard for anyone to do this.” Lowery points.

Owen turns to face Lowery. “A what?”

“You know.” Lowery shrugs. “Ever seen the panda cam?” A smile curves Lowery’s mouth and lights his eyes as he watches Owen understand. “Yeah. Something like that, only way better.”

Lowery’s grin is contagious. Owen inclines his head toward the screens. “Show me.”

Lowery does. The game-like interface is gorgeous. Beginning with the original Jurassic Park logo a vast menu of options invite users to tour the park in the past and in the present. Historical video and animation tell the story of John Hammond and the original park. Another option combines cctv footage and news footage detailing the crisis of Jurassic World in documentary style accuracy. Current CCTV feeds are framed by information about species, herds and habitats. Drop down maps and overlays provide information from the heat detectors allowing a visitor to immediately access the cameras showing animals.

The release of prey animals was smart. There are functioning herds of goats in the foothills, sheep on the plains. The pigs have taken over the southern half of the jungle. The cattle hasn’t fared quite as well. It looks to Owen as if the last few small herds won’t last through the rainy season. Although the entire island has an abandoned feel, every image has a haunting and kind of threatening beauty. “This is how you’ve always seen it, isn’t it?” He asks softly.

“Yeah. I guess so.” Lowery answers slowly.

“You up for going back to work for InGen?”

“Not really.”

Owen would give the same answer. “Alright. Let’s talk to the team and see what we can come up with.”

~

Never in her wildest dreams did Claire imagine such an undemanding day to day life. Sleep and food, in much larger quantities than she’s ever consumed either, restores her to feeling like herself again. Almost. Foxtrot gets bigger and more active by the day, it seems, and that’s weird. Otherwise, her energy returns along with her sense of humor and insistent curiosity. Not that there’s anything to do. She taps her fingers on the table top, waits for Owen to come home. Considers some online shopping. She going to need clothes though she likes wandering around in leggings and Owen’s shirts. She scrolls around on Amazon, they’re going to need some baby stuff, too. It all seems so unlikely.

Just as she lost her grip on who she is Owen completely refocused and saw her. She feels her lips curve with the pleasure of thinking of him. The anchor of his gaze, not as constant as it was for a while, just keeps getting better. Needing each other was amazing, wanting each other is pure bliss. Something she won’t be telling Karen, who is far too amused by Claire’s current predicament.

Yesterday Claire started brushing up her resume. She crossed off a few things she’s good at, but doesn’t enjoy anymore- public speaking and fundraising. A headhunter called last week asking if she’d like to join a professional speakers bureau. The concept was nauseating. Quite literally. She’s legally bound by the InGen confidentiality clause anyway. What else interesting could she speak about? She’s really good at logistics. She’s been kibitzing on excursion planning for Eric and Barry when they call. She wonders if there’s anything she can do for them part time. The prospect of two weeks in Costa Rica is remarkably uplifting. She wonders if any of the boys would go with having the baby in Quepos. She's sure she could find a good midwife. Just daydreaming about being back at the compound makes her happy.

In her heart she knows Owen is right, of course. Whatever business they have with the park, with the island, with the creatures living there, they have to remedy. She rests her hand on the slight curve of her belly where Foxtrot wiggles. She doesn’t know how to reckon with those lives and this very tiny one. She’s not taking her infant to the park. And she’s fairly sure she’s never going to put the tiny one down. It just feels as if she can get back to Quepos, she’ll be able to sort better.

The front door bangs open and Owen fills the room. “You are not going to believe what Lowery has got going. He says hi, by the way.” He reaches Claire and bends for a kiss. She rises into his arms, kissing him back with more interest than he expected.

Claire savors Owen’s embrace, pressing against him, tasting the warmth of his mouth. “Missed you.”

“Really?” He tucks his head to her neck and kisses her.

She hums. “Yes.” She draws out the word. She wants to ask what he's been up to, say she wants to move back to Quepos, hold him closer, take him in. Thought and desire collide in a long wet kiss.

Owen was reasonably attractive to women and used to a certain amount of pursuit. The less control Claire has over anything, the more intensely she pursues him. Worse things could happen to a guy. He feels her shift from interest to intent and follows, tunnels fingers up into her hair, pulls her flush to him. Her attention grounds him. There's something magical about her choosing to need him and the ability to reciprocate is like the gift of a superpower, feels both huge and humbling. He hungers for her. Hungers with her.

Claire frames Owen's face with her hands, drawing back for a breath and to see him. Soft moss green eyes that capture her, make her real. Hers. A riptide swell of possession surges on a sigh up from her belly. His answering slow smile is all sorts of irresistible invitation and belonging. Wanting him is pleasure with no bottom and no top, lights sparks under her skin. She grips his shoulders and climbs into his arms. He takes a step back, accepts her weight, regains his balance, laughs. She covers his mouth with hers, takes the vibration of his laugh, turns it into a long moan with the caress of tongue and lips. Legs around his hips, she feels the pressure of his desire, hums. His growl reverberates through her in the best way. Her awareness tunnels, she senses moving without much caring where they’re heading other than toward each other.

Arms full of compelling consuming Claire, Owen spares a moment’s consideration of base comfort. Seven steps to the sofa, he spills her into the cushions. The good thing about leggings is the requirement for peeling, he thinks. He hooks his fingers on the elastic at the small of her back and peels the stretchy fabric of pants and panties from under her butt in a single long motion, better than gift wrap. Long porcelain smooth legs are revealed an inch at a time. He greets each newly exposed bit of flesh with a kiss from belly to ankles, loving the heady scents, the silky feel, and the sounds of throaty pleasure mixed with impatience. He fends off helping hands and takes his time, earning several gasps of encouragement.

Claire surrenders to his ministry. She buries her fingers in his curls, arches up wanting more friction. He chuffs a tantalizing breath under her knee, the heat ricocheting straight to her crotch. She moans an imprecation. “Please,” turns from a whispered plea to a hiss of satisfaction when his mouth finally breaches achy wet folds at her center. Hot swipes of his tongue merge with strong fingers slipping into her and conjuring fire in her veins. Her orgasm flares from her center outwards. Thoughts evaporate into shiny bliss. She has no clue how it is he suddenly fills her completely. Her breath hitches as his cock hits her cervix and the ebb of one orgasm becomes the start of another.

He grunts with the sudden pressure of her slick wetness contracting around him, pleasure swamps through him, heavy, delicious, consuming. He merges into the rhythms he knows, the intimate thrust and balance of friction blurring his awareness until his balls clench and his hips stutter and his orgasm carries him deep into the bliss of momentary rapture.

Claire’s tunneled vision expands slowly. Owen remains balanced on her thighs, lusciously heavy, damp, close and real. She frames his face, brings his focus to her, smiles and traces his features with delicate fingers and lips. She hums, low in her throat. “You’re perfect.” She murmurs, feeling a gush of gratitude gather behind her ribs. Lazy aftershocks zip along her skin. She rolls a little, dislodging him from her, tipping them further into the couch cushions where she curls into the curve of his body. “Yum.”

Owen chuckles, a chuff of hot air on her forehead. He tugs the chenille throw up over their hips and settles further into the pillows. He might have to join her for the afternoon nap. His entire body feels contentedly liquified. He absently pulls the scrunchy from her hair and ruffles her long looping curls between his fingers. They lie quietly for several moments, enjoying each other with possessive touches.

Claire asks about Lowery and Owen tells her what’s happening on the island. She listens without interruption, although her mind begins churning with possibilities. She doesn’t like the idea of hunting on the island. The animals weren’t bred as targets. And they’re smart. They’ll hunt in return if provoked. She sifts through the pro’s and con’s of re-engaging with InGen. If they want to ensure the company doesn’t do something stupid again that’s exactly what they ought to do. Simply trusting Lex and Allan, no matter how outstanding they are, isn’t really adequate.

~

Zach watches Claire across the room, trying to remember if he’s ever seen her in his mom’s house. Maybe. The ‘rents bought the house when he was seven. They went to Disneyland with Claire when he was eight, which was the last time he knew for sure she’d seen them until the park. Maybe not. Either way, she looks right at home under an afghan in the recliner. How had he not known his grandmother made that afghan? At the moment, Claire is on the phone talking to Lex Murphy about their trip to Quepos in three weeks. The guys had been trying keep a side trip the islands under wrap, but as Claire is currently discussing an excursion with Lex they must not’ve fooled her.

Claire looks as good in person as she does over video chat. Foxtrot has created a convex curve between her hips but, as reported, sleep and food has made a noticeable difference. They’ve been on video chat in the afternoons while he walks home from school. They swap details of the day and she’s helping him sort out after graduation options. She’s the only one of all of them who doesn’t seem to care if he goes to college or not. He’s pretty sure he’ll go after a year off, but at the moment he’s just not in the mood. He’s narrowed the future to either working with Eric and the guys for a year or stay with Claire and Owen for a year and pick up some community college credits. Both good options. He thinks he’ll wait until Foxtrot makes it to the outside and see.

Owen and Gray are stretched out on the floor in front of The Rise of the Tombraider, absorbed the game. Mom is on her way home from work, stopping off to pick up dinner. Zach frowns at his physics homework and considers asking Gray to do it for him. At this rate, Gray will start college at the same time he does. Claire’s laugh snags his attention and he hears her agreeing it’d be fun if Lex joined them in Quepos. The trip seems to be a go and Zach feels a small thrum of anticipation. He taps up the chat he’s got going with Charlie and shares the happy speculation.

Over dinner, Karen talks through a case she’s working on, unwinding. It’s nice to have adults in the house at the end of the day, though she suspects they don’t care about the litigation facing her. Claire barefoot and pregnant is a revelation, happy and attentive. Owen mentioned needing advice about forming a limited liability company of some kind, and when Karen asks, the conversation turns to possible structures for creating a business able to contract with or get usage rights from InGen. It sounds a bit like they want to lease the park. Which would be nuts. Karen stops chewing and glares from Owen to Claire and back.

“No, no.” Claire waves a dismissive hand.

Owen shrugs. “Well, maybe.”

Claire reconsiders. “You think?”

Karen puts down her fork emphatically, her question clear on her face.

Owen concedes with an answer. “Lowery designed some kick ass software that would allow us to create a virtual park. People will be able to visit the park through video.”

“Then you’d always know what’s going on.” Gray points out.

Claire nods. “Yes, we will.”

“Legitimately.” Owen amends. “We can see what’s going on now.”

“It’s pretty amazing.” Claire says. “You’ll see it when we’re in Quepos.”

A movie, a fire in the fireplace, hot chocolate, and popcorn. Tucked between Owen and Karen under one of their mom’s afghans with the boys sprawled out in front of them, Claire muses that family is good. Foxtrot flips in agreement and she rubs her belly. It’s almost comical when Owen, Zach and Gray’s phones begin chiming. Zach checks his, reads and raises his eyes to Owen. Owen puts a hand in his pocket and Gray says, “oh shit. T-Rex killed someone.”

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ... A movie, a fire in the fireplace, hot chocolate, and popcorn. Tucked between Owen and Karen under one of their mom’s afghans with the boys sprawled out in front of them, Claire muses that family is good. Foxtrot flips in agreement and she rubs her belly. It’s almost comical when Owen, Zach and Gray’s phones begin chiming. Zach checks his, reads and raises his eyes to Owen. Owen puts a hand in his pocket and Gray says, “oh shit. T-Rex killed someone.”

 

Zach, Gray, and Owen read texts. Claire’s gaze finds Karen’s and Karen hits the pause button on the remote. Claire’s hands feel oddly empty without a phone. Hers is undoubtedly in Owen’s pocket. She grips his arm, a silent request for information.

“Lowery.” He says. He fires off a question mark in reply to Lowery’s text message. “Think T-Rex ate one of the hunters.” He reads the slightly cryptic message aloud.

Claire’s brows lift. She doesn’t say what she immediately thinks. Serves ‘em right.

Owen hasn’t fully digested the notion of hunting parties on the island, nor has he decided if he needs to do anything about them. He hasn’t wanted Claire distressed, either, so he hasn’t talked about it at all. Judging from the storm gathering in her eyes, that had been an accurate assessment, if not a particularly good choice. He locks her gaze with his. “A big game hunting group of some sort showed up on the island a month ago. Not the first.”

Her jaw clenches. She’s neither for or against sport hunting as a political question though some versions raise her hackles in discomfort. She cannot shake the memory of a field of slaughtered and dying animals in the wake of the I-Rex rampage. Why kill something for fun? She’s fairly sure no one is eating dinosaur meat. That thought makes her shiver. She pushes it away and assesses her love. He’s been having nightmares since seeing the hunting on the island. He tries hard not to let her know. But of course she knows. 

Another round of message chimes go off and Claire takes Owen’s phone. Lowery is looking at back surveillance video to see if he can find out what happened. The hunting party is on a boat, heading back to the mainland. Claire glowers up at Owen. He leans to kiss her lightly. “There’s not anything we can do about this right now.” His words don’t match the tension around his eyes and mouth.

She blinks. Considers. Sighs. Her head teems with possibilities. Tell Lex and have InGen do something about security on the island. She doesn’t want people running around killing her dinosaurs. That thought gives her pause, her fury extinguished as quickly as it ignited. “Can he see what’s happening on Sorna?”

“No. The system over there is down. We were hoping to get over there and get it back up while we’re in Quepos.” The muscles in Owen’s jaw bunch and she can hear the underpinnings of fear in his voice. It occurs to her he’s been worried about hunters chasing his dinosaurs for weeks and hasn’t left.

“Okay.” She says. As on Nublar, power is generated by geothermal conversion on Sorna. But, the system was turned off a decade ago. She gives Owen his phone and settles back into the cushions.

“Well, I should’ve guessed.” Karen huffs. She glares at her sons. “And, no. Don’t even ask. You’re not setting foot on either of those islands.”

Claire slips her own phone, so rarely used these days, from Owen’s pocket. Her eyes narrow as she thinks and taps. She composes a short direct email to Lex and Allan. Lex won’t care Lowery is keeping an eye on things, although the security division wouldn’t like it. Trouble on Nublar, she explains. She asks for a conference call tomorrow. As an afterthought, she cc’s the entire Quepos team. When she looks up, her family is watching her closely. She shrugs. “We might as well find out. We’ll try for a conference call tomorrow.”

Owen’s brows rise. Karen shakes her head. Claire’s phone rings in her hand. Owen nods, scrambles to his feet and heads for the kitchen. Leave it to his lady to stir up the furies. He opens the fridge. Over his shoulder he hears Claire soothing Lowery. He grabs a bottle of chocolate mint water for Claire, two sodas for the guys, and a couple beers for he and Karen. The evening just got a bit longer. He lumbers back into the living room and passes out beverages. Before the fracas dies down, Claire will be sound asleep, either in bed or on the couch, leaving him stuck with her phone. He kisses Claire’s forehead and settles onto the couch cushions beside her.

The pieces of Claire’s conversation they hear begins to circle around the inability of InGen security to manage the islands and their inhabitants. Zach texts back and forth with Barry, Eric and Charlie furiously, occasionally interjecting a comment from one of them into the room.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if guys on the security staff are helping to arrange the hunts.” Karen muses aloud. “How much do those guys get paid?” 

This hadn’t occurred to Owen. He fastens his gaze on her. “Gods, the money wouldn’t matter.” He says slowly. “It’d be the ultimate impress your friends and others coup.” He leans forward to think, his hands and head between his knees. His thoughts refuse to organize, instead they swirl from flashes of InGen security staff smugness to betting pools in the Navy. Claire’s hand slips into his hair, caressing. His head is better again and he wants to be on Sorna, wants to yell at someone, hit someone. Can’t leave. Can’t stay. None of this is his responsibility anymore, even if it’s all his fault. That can’t be right, but the feelings churn his guts and distract his thinking. Beside him, it sounds as if Claire is edging Lowery around to agreeing on a phone call to Lex. At his feet, it sounds as if the rest of the guys are bubbling with indignant plans for the islands when they all get back within striking range in a month.

In Owen’s nightmare the experience of Echo blown away in front of him, the valley filled with dead and dying animals, the feel of pteranodon talons in his shoulder and chest, and the dance of red laser scope trails across scaly skin kaleidoscopes into mayhem of the worst kind. He wakes, sitting, his chest tightening in the vise of terror. What if the Costa Rican government has encouraged hunting on the islands as a quiet and lucrative way to solve the threat of the animals moving ashore? The fastest way to kill the animals would be with poison. He shakes his head, wipes his brow, finds his hair is wet with sweat. So is his t-shirt. A hand on his back. “Sorry.” He didn’t mean to wake her.

Claire slides across the mattress, thankful they’ve chosen to stay in a hotel, she curls behind Owen. ‘Want a shower?”

“It’s one fifteen.”

“So what?”

He turns. She's smiling sleepily up from under the comforter, hair softly tousled around her face. He traces her cheek with a finger. Her gaze, liquid green comfort, tugs him completely into the present. He leans over and kisses her. She runs a hand up his back. Foxtrot’s expanding lair and burgeoning milk supply has made the thing he needs slightly out of reach. The inability to be face to face with those eyes just inches away and buried in her until his boundaries blur generates creative lovemaking, fun and satisfying in its own right, but not nearly as restorative. Foreheads touching, he stares, gets lost then anchors to her presence. Her fingers wander up his neck, into his hair, to his jaw, across his lips.

She sits, moving to straddle his hips, settling in his lap, her hands framing his face. Her in his arms, Owen stands for a moment to let his boxers drop to the floor. He speculates angles for a brief moment, watching Claire’s smile widen deliciously, feeling a smile touch his lips. He sits on the edge of the bed, slightly precarious, reveling in the long slide into her. They rock, curved toward each other over the belly they’ve created, eyes locked, easing into a see-saw motion entirely new in its grind, slide, and thrust. The newness electrifies like the first time, the steadiness of her gaze as familiar as air, the combination flaring through him, hot and fast.

Claire gasps, the sudden completeness startling with its intensity of delicious friction. Everything clenches tightly, drawing a groan from Owen, deeply pleasing. She growls, increasing the speed and force of their tilt, wanting all of him, every last scrap of his attention centered. Searing desire spreads from her core to the tips of her toes and top of her head, consuming her in the magic that is them. She dissolves, comes apart, a soft cry wrenching up.

Her cry singes his nerves, already alight, leaves him utterly helpless in the face of her melting, her shining eyes glazing as she shudders around him, he buries himself deep, rising and falling at the same time, his orgasm chasing hers, up and through.

It seems a miracle they don’t fall off the bed. His legs tremble as he leans back onto the mattress, scoots them to safety. On her knees over him, Claire grins down. “Well, shit.” There’s a laugh in her voice.

He chuffs a breath of amusement. “Thank you.” He says. The gratitude gilds the edges of contentment, slips through him, warm and strong.

His eyes are wet, tears close. She cannot look away. There’s so much. Alongside her delight with life, the losses mount up some days. Being without a job is like losing a family member. She even misses the lost social media accounts, the pain in the ass promotional email. Yet, without the park, she wouldn’t have Owen and she won’t let the damn islands take him back. She arches forward, nuzzles into his neck and bites him. He grunts mild surprise and protest, through not enough to make him move. “Mine.” She says against his skin.

“Yeah.” He agrees.

Foxtrot, idle throughout the lovemaking and now squished between them, rolls. A limb shoves, and another roll. Owen laughs, turns on his side, snuggling Claire into the curve of his body, kissing her temple.

Nose to his chest, Claire kisses softly along his sternum. “Let’s go back.”

“Hmmm?”

She lifts her head, waits for him to meet her eyes. “Let’s go back.”

~

For several weeks, Lex works and worries. There’s plenty to keep busy with and the new strategic plan calls for significant re-working of by-laws, policies, board structure, and staffing. She’s always been a hard worker who puts in long days. What else does she have to consume time and energy? Despite the hectic pace she keeps, the knowledge of her grandfather’s clone pricks at the back of her thoughts with annoying regularity. If Lex is completely honest with herself, she knows exactly what happened to her grandfather’s cloned embryo. She doesn’t want to know, nor does she want to have that conversation with Tim. Does it matter? Does she have to do anything at all?

Lex has been staring at words on the computer screen without seeing them for several minutes. Perhaps a quick walk around the building and a cup of coffee. She activates the screen saver and rises, stretches. She’s been sitting too long.

Graciela glances up as Lex passes the executive assistant’s door. Gracie works the same kind of long hours Lex does. Lex pauses in the opening. “Can I get you anything from downstairs?” The cafeteria is long closed, reducing them to depend on the vending machines in the basement.

“A Coke?”

“Sure.”

“Everything okay?” Gracie rests her chin in her hand, giving Lex a concerned once over.

Lex leans on the door jamb. “Just worried.” She shakes her head. “We both probably need to cut back.”

“Mmmm. Maybe next week.” Gracie chuckles and her attention shifts back to her computer.

Lex heads down the stairs at a trot. She has fuzzy recollections of her Aunt and Uncle’s talk of adoption all those long years ago. She also recalls the sheer delight when Aunt Rose finally got pregnant. Mom musing about how long they’d been trying. Grandpa had three kids. Uncle Eddie sings opera and doesn’t have kids. Mom has Lex and Tim, and Uncle Jeff finally had Jeremy. Jeremy’s nineteen, a sophomore at MIT this year, and a dead-ringer for grandpa. Lex blows out a long sigh.

Grandpa is dead. Sort of. Henry feigns he doesn’t care. But, Henry knows. And Henry would do anything to save his skin. If Lex doesn’t do anything, she’ll be tied to Henry Wu forever. An untenable thought. She listens to the click of her shoes on the stairs in the echo chamber of the stairwell. John Hammond was close to his children. Lex can’t fathom that her uncles and mom don’t know Jeff is raising his father’s clone. Her steps slow. Grandpa’s bids for immortality seem to have had no bounds.

She comes to a stop, gazes up the fifteen stories of concrete. The trait that marks her a true introvert, she does some of her best processing when she’s alone. Will she really wreck her family’s equilibrium just to protect herself and her career from an employee? Lord knows she hates Wu enough to be poor judge of the situation. There’s someone she can talk to without risking mayhem and maybe even get some decent advice and support.

Lex starts down the stairs again, her hand going to her pocket and fingering her phone. Probably no reception in the stairwell. But, she can pull up Claire’s number.

Claire wasn’t surprised when Lex called and suggested they meet. She is surprised when Lex insists on meeting at the house. Lex wasn’t sure what she’d say, or how she’d explain her problem. She is surprised when she settles on the couch and blurts. “I’m pretty sure Henry and my grandfather created my cousin by cloning grandpa.”

Claire’s brow scrunches and her head tilts as she tries to assimilate what Lex just said. Owen, half risen to offer Lex something to drink, sinks back onto the sofa. Lex nods, then shakes her head. Claire reaches out a touches Lex’s arm. “Lexi?” She’s never used this nickname though she’s heard it often enough from Tim. She’s also never seen Lex anything other than unflappably calm. At the moment, she’s anything but.

Lex begins slowly, explaining what she saw in the records, what Henry has said, her aunt’s mysterious pregnancy, her cousin’s likeness to their grandfather. “Or, his father? Himself? Jesus, there are reasons this is illegal.” She surrenders to her confusion.

“When was this? How old is your… cousin?” Owen’s questions have an unexpected urgency.

Lex and Claire look at him. “What?” Claire asks, responding to his tone and expression rather than the questions.

Owen glances back and forth between the women. “Wu wasn’t just cloning. They were designing. No telling what he’d…” He trails off as Claire’s eyes widen.

Owen doesn’t share any of the doubts Lex has about sharing the information with her cousin. There is absolutely no telling what kind of health problems the kid might stumble across in his future, he argues. A guy has a right to know who he is. Owen’s indignation is an accurate outward reflection of Lex’s internal state. Claire is quiet while Lex and Owen start to talk about how to tell Jeremy… what exactly. Which feels like another kinda of thing entirely.

When Lex expresses her desire to consult Tim, Owen gets Tim up on video chat, but not before eliciting a promise from Lex that Tim’s the last person to know about this before Jeremy. With little fumbling, Lex tells Tim what she’s read and what she suspects. Tim instantly confirms her sense that Jeremy is the child in question. Tim’s always been close to his young cousin, his heartbreak is palpable across the ether. 

Claire listens with part of her mind, another part sorting everything she knows about Henry Wu. She flashes back to the last day at the park, in the lab, everything being packed up and removed. By InGen security. Everything was backed up and whisked away, including Henry Wu. She’d always assumed Hoskins had given those final orders before Delta ate him. A memory that’s still savagely satisfying.

The subtle shift of Claire’s expression catches Owen’s attention and he falls silent watching her. Leaving Lex and Tim to debate the next steps, Owen crosses back to the sofa. Claire glances up. “I don’t mean to change the subject.” She keeps her voice low. “But, Henry… security… there’s more to all of this. Everything keeps coming back to the security division.” She explains about the hunting on Isla Nublar and the possible death of a hunter. Owen speculates about the security staff looking the other way, or worse, encouraging hunting. Then Claire recalls the team taking Wu off the island in the end, leaving the rest of them to fend for themselves. “I just can’t shake the feeling that there are other people, or other interests at play here that we don’t know about.”

“And, maybe Wu does know about?” Their eyes meet. Claire nods.

“Probably not really the time.” Owen says. He tilts his head toward Lex at the computer where she and Tim are having a debate about when and how to talk to Jeremy.

Claire fleetingly tries to imagine telling Zach he was cloned from her father. There’s an ick factor somewhere in the equation. Good thing it’s not her problem. She leans over until she’s reclined into the cushions. Owen lifts her feet onto his leg and begins massaging. She hums her approval. Although she closes her eyes and in all probability will be asleep within moments, right now her thoughts whirr.

An hour later, Owen arms the security system, the blue light turning red telling him everything is closed and locked. This is the first time in ages he’s felt bad seeing someone head home. Tim will be in town tomorrow and judging from Owen’s last glance at Lex’s face not a minute too soon. He runs the tap for two glasses of water and heads to the bedroom. Claire’s soundly sleeping, sprawled on the bed with various pillows strewn about. He sets her glass of water on her bedside table, a smile touching his lips. He circles the bed to put the second glass on his own bedside table and taps on the night light, the soft wave of blue light spreading across the floor revealing a shoe and a book at the foot of the bed he missed in the dark. She’s not a light sleeper, he could turn on more light without disturbing her, but he doesn’t. He gets ready for bed quietly, slides between the sheets, nudges her toward her side of the bed until he can get all the way in. In her sleep, she runs her hand over his chest and sighs. She curls to him. Her breathing deep and easy.

‘Let’s go back.’ Her voice echoes in his mind. They’ve been busy all day, capped off with Lex’s eventful visit and it’s only now his thoughts roll back to her words from a week ago. Of course, they’d be back in Quepos in a couple of days. All of them harbor plans to get to the islands. When he asked Claire what she meant by ‘let’s go back’ she smiled, gave him a little shrug.

He needs to see his raptors. Lowery is pretty sure if anyone had been on Sorna, or seen, let alone killed a raptor, it would have surfaced on the net somewhere. Owen agrees with this logically. Stegos and Trikes are the prize kills within the tiny club of dino hunters. Lots of big talk about T-rex and the raptors. No one knows there are no raptors on Nublar and no one has reported any sightings. Speculation runs high that the raptors are too smart to be seen. Damn right, they are, he thinks. Not too smart to resist killing anyone hunting them, he hopes. He gives himself an internal shake. It’s no wonder he has nightmares when he spends too much time before sleep pondering the fate of his friends. He grabs his phone and pops on earbuds, queuing up an audiobook, a Craig Johnson Longmire book. He sinks into the bed and the story, relaxing, drifting, eventually sleeping.

~

Claire, Owen, and Lowery arrive at the Quepos compound three days before the rest of crew will begin coming in. Two groups of InGen security details stayed in the compound since the team left and there’s some cleaning up and dusting off to do. Lowery jumps into booting up all the compound systems from the water pumps to the computer systems. Claire and Owen make the three-hour drive over to San Jose to stock up, loading pallets of paper goods, beverages and cleaning supplies into the jeep. Back at the compound, they sort out the bedding and put on two huge pots of beans and a pot of rice. Day two, they sweep, make beds, and wash dishes. On day three, Claire wakes from a nap to the sound of the Temptations wafting over the PA and grins. Ian.

By the end of the day, every bed in the compound is spoken for. Billy, Karen, Zach, and Gray share a cabin, as do Alan, Ian, Ellie and Ian’s daughter Kelly. Eric, Barry, Lowery, and Charlie, stake out claims in the bunk house. As arranged, Tim brings Jeremy Hammond and they join the boys. Lex protests being left in the last cabin alone and coaxes Kelly to join her. Seventeen people gather at the dinner table in a noisy affair that has them all moving from chair to chair, talking, laughing, and catching up. 

Snatches of conversations eddy around the room. Claire watches the kids who’ve been lost on the islands gravitate toward each other with amusement. Lex and Kelly begin washing up after dinner, comparing notes. One by one, Tim, Eric, Zach, and Gray drift over, chip in with comments, begin drying dishes and wiping down counters.

“Nah, the compies were the biggest threat. They noticed everything.”

“My point is I-Rex was actually looking for things to attack.”

Claire pulls over a second chair to lift her feet onto and listens. There’s some one-ups-manship around who’s seen which animals and how close. Eric details how he collected T-Rex pee, which Claire knew about but hadn’t heard before. Being stuck on those islands as a kid seems to have been different than being stuck on them as an adult while responsible for said kids.

At the opposite end of the table, Ian and Ellie are deep in a conversation about territories, and survival rates, in short, numbers. They drag Lowery into their discussion, eliciting his help with possible counting strategies.

“I think the heat sensors are still useful. But we ought to use drones, you know?”

“I would love for you to meet my folks.”

“I just don’t see how any of the cattle have survived.”

Alan joins Ellie and Ian. Claire leans back against Owen, who is talking to Barry about their families. Karen and Billy might be discussing Christmas. Claire watches and listens, lets her thoughts swirl from topic to topic. The other conversation observer is Jeremy Hammond, though he’s still getting to know everyone, slowly gravitating towards his age-mates, Charlie, and Zach. Claire’s starting to realize being on the outside of conversations is something she does to herself. Maybe too much time in control rooms thinking about people in the aggregate. As far as she can tell, everyone wants to set foot on an island for one reason or another. She’s not crazy about the idea of seventeen of them hopping off a boat for some site seeing. Owen, Barry, and Eric are the only credible guides. There is a tiny contingent of InGen security staffers who rotate keeping an eye on the islands, primarily from a headquarters in San Jose with irregular trips out. She begins arranging people in her mind, decides each trip should have a clear working objective. Research and observation are really very different than tech upgrades or rebooting the security systems on Sorna.

“Cut it out.” Owen nudges Claire’s shoulder with his.

“What?” She surfaces from her reverie.

“Whatever organizing scheme is happening in there.” He taps her temple lightly, letting his fingers drift back into her hair. He kisses her nose. “It’ll wait until tomorrow.” He stands, weaves his fingers with hers. “Come on. The party is moving outside. Ian’s putting music on.”

Amidst a game of touch football with sporadic dancing (who can resist Rockin’ Robin?) there is another jumble of talk. The most recent death on Nublar hasn’t hit any papers, solidifying speculation no one was supposed to be on the island, deepening suspicion of hunters or other nefarious activity on the island. It a little weird to see Lowery enjoying himself, Owen notes. Used to only seeing the man compulsively hunched over his keyboard, watching Lowery run around with the rest of them – the man’s a stealthy play caller – is slightly surreal. Kelly Malcolm turns out to be a secret weapon, running like lighting and a good passer, she’s quickly elevated to quarterback of B team. Ian holds down the A team’s center blocking with size and stubbornness. 30 minutes of shenanigans sees half the players drop to recline on the main building porch, and the youngest of the guys toss the ball around.

Night falls, fireflies winking in and out of awareness on the edges of the jungle. Charlie, Zach, and Gray pester Lowery about a video game set up. Lowery offers instead to fire up one of two drones he’s preparing to fly over the island. That gets everyone’s attention. In the flurry of waiting for Lowery to bring one of the flying computers out for a test run, Jeremy drops to sit beside Claire on the steps. He doesn’t immediately meet her eyes, and she takes advantage of the moment to look at him closely. Unruly dark blonde hair, baby face, he’s impeccably groomed right down to his neatly trimmed nails.

He looks up then and her gaze softens. He smiles, a wide engaging smile that makes it all the way up to his eyes. “Lex says you know about my… situation.”

“I do.” Claire says.

Jeremy nods. “She said I ought to talk to you. For advice, like.”

Claire’s brows rise. “If you want.”

He nods again and she glimpses the fragility of him. “Did you know my grandfather?”

“I met him.” Claire says. “But only briefly, when I got the job at the park. No one said it was a job interview, but it felt like it. I saw him a few times, at the park, at board meetings. But the only time we had a conversation was that first meeting.”

“I don’t feel any different.” Jeremy says. “Knowing, I mean. I’m not sure I believe… Well, I mean…” He flips his hand in a gesture of bemused confusion.

Gray, Zach, Charlie, and Ian spill out of the door, talking loudly, Lowery right behind them with a large white vaguely x-shaped contraption in his hands. Jeremy hops to his feet, giving Claire a lopsided grin. “Anyway… just wanted to say…” He takes off after the crowd.

It feels as if they never left.

~

Eric is first off the boat, tugging the anchor further toward the shoreline. Claire hops from the skiff into the waves, wading to the shore, Owen beside her, Barry waiting for Eric to find a secure anchor before slipping silently into the water. The air is warm and cloying, their shirts are quickly as wet from sweat as their pants from the surf. Isla Sorna is still and noisy. Without a breeze, every insect hum is distinct, birds call from various distances. Claire reaches the narrow beach trying to orient to the internal map of the island in her head. Eric wears a compass and gets his bearings quickly. His dark eyes shine with anticipation. Claire can’t help but grin.

Owen’s hand comes to the small of Claire’s back. Eric nods up the beach and the group starts walking. The first order of business is to reset the generators. If that works, there’s a chance of getting the security cameras online with little trouble. If not, they’ll troubleshoot. Lowery sent two solar powered beacons with them to guide drones. If they can plant the beacons on high ground, future drone surveillance can be guided from Quepos.

They’re going to record any animals they see. No one said not to look for dinosaurs. Now they’ve arrived, Owen is certain he’ll make at least one attempt at seeing the raptors. Claire refused to let him come without her. The team agrees he can venture out, while Claire, Eric, and Barry are in the central power station. They’ve packed in walkies with a 35 – 40-mile range, enough to cover the island. Lowery and Tim stay on the boat, contingency in case of emergency.

The jungle is lush, making for hard going. A half mile in, they come across a creek bed they can follow to within a hundred feet of the power station. Wading isn’t necessarily easier than bush trekking, but Claire prefers it. Barry points out a small flock of pteranodons wheeling in the sky. Snakes and lizards are plentiful and Claire wonders what that means about the compy population. Based on Ellie’s computations, the island isn’t going to support a lot of larger life for long without some kind of feeder stock. There’s only so much can survive on birds and bugs. Checking in every fifteen minutes as agreed, the group makes the four-mile trek to the power station in good time. Along the way they see a group of ankylosaurus waddling across the creek.

“Merde.” Barry mutters. The jungle has had its way with large sections of the outer building shell of the geothermal power plant.

“Have mercy.” Owen agrees on a huff. It’s not entirely clear where the front of the damn thing is. Owen clicks the radio. “Dude. This place is a mess.”

“Naturally.” Lowery’s voice crackles over the radio. “But, it was built to last. The entrance is on the west side of the smallest building.”

“Brother, you are not seeing what I’m seeing.” Owen pictures Lowery bent over a schematic. “All I’ve got here is three vine covered humps.” 

“Try the west side of the smallest hump then.” Lowery says.

Owen glares at the handset. Barry chuckles grimly and heads around the building. Once he’s used to looking at it, Owen sees bits of man made in the tropical hill. He holsters the radio and the four of them begin pulling away vines.

“We got a door.” Eric says.

“The manual lock will be a floor rod. Should lift up.” Lowery says.

Owen looks at Eric with a shrug and holds back two handfuls of vines while Eric fumbles around the bottom of the door. The door bolt is easy to spot, and Eric pulls up on it. He has the rod, three inches around up to his waist. “Shit, man.”

Barry steps in to help and together they lift it further. The lock rod finally comes out of the ground at five feet and the door swings open a few inches. “We’re in.”

The power station main room is grimy, but relatively plant free. “Now what?” Owen asks his radio.

Lowery mutters something about steam pipes above them. Claire sees what he’s talking about and motions to Owen. “We’ll do this. You go.”

He narrows his eyes at her. She nods, talks into her radio. “Guys, Owen is heading out for reconnaissance and to put up the beacons. I see your pipes, Lowery. Where to?” 

Owen takes a step back and stops at the door, watching Claire, Barry, and Eric start off down a hallway until they are out of sight. Not out of earshot. He still hears Lowery and Claire as he slips out the door, back into the jungle.

When the power plant is well out of sight and he’s surrounded by dense foliage, the remnants of a road under his feet, sky the blue of sapphire above him, Owen understands both how insane it is to be out here with nothing but a camera and a radio and how much Claire loves him. He’s sure beyond a shadow of a doubt he wouldn’t survive the thought of her out here alone. He tucks that away for the time being and concentrates on tuning into his surroundings. He opens the channel to Tim, checks in and leaves the channel open. His best chances of finding two specific animals on this island are that they find him. He’s planned a ten-mile walk through the center crag of the island and back. Either they see him or they don’t. He’s invested most of his faith in others not being interested in him, for the most part, he’s either too big or too small to make a decent meal and lots of what lives here are herbivores. He stays to the shade beside the crumbling road, stays hydrated, stays alert.

At two miles, the craggy slopes part to reveal a view of the island’s interior. Owen gazes across the canopy sloping away into a valley. After a careful surveillance of his immediate surroundings, he lifts his binoculars and scans for movement. In a clearing, he finds a herd of gallimimus, two trikes walking amongst them. On the far cliffs, absolutely huge pteranodon nest. He’d seen pictures of the mutants, but in reality they are stunning. He wonders what the hell else is out here, thinks seriously about his own sanity. He drinks a little water and moves on. The center of the island is higher than the coast and the walk is a steady mild climb. From the top of another rise, he spots a decent spot for a beacon and marking his path with GPS he heads to the crown of the cliff. He anchors the beacon with pitons and sets up the tiny solar array. He gets the thing turned on with his second try. On the radio, he hears Lowery’s grunt of contentment.

A narrow waterfall spills from the side of the cliff running down past the road, maybe all the way to the ocean. He detours down to top off his canteen and maybe splash some water on his face and neck. The water is ice cold and sweet. He drinks, rinses his head. A flurry of scrambling in the brush on the other side of the water flow catches his attention.

From the leaves tumble two baby velociraptors with a lizard larger than either of them in their teeth. Owen freezes on his haunches at the waterside. No, not raptors, he thinks. Though, tussling with the lizard it’s hard to tell. They sound like raptors. A splash and the lizard manages a desperate escape, protested by fussy clicks and a honk. It’s then that they notice Owen and still. Heads tilt and identical angles and he thinks, yep, raptors. A tiny cockscomb of feathers lifts from the smaller one’s head. The larger one makes a curious honk.

Where there are baby raptors, there must be a parent. Owen’s exposure prickles like ice along his skin. The babies aren’t afraid, their guttural clicks sounding like questions. An adult velociraptor cranes its neck from the leaves, barks at the babies, who vanish. Owen and the raptor stare at one another for a long moment. Then, she too is gone.

In the wake of the animals, several calls, barks and answers echo through the jungle ahead of him. Well, they know he’s here. He whistles, loud and long. Once. He stands slowly, thinking about better ground. Feeling foolish. Foolish and also sure. He knows the raptors communicate. He knows he’s not a threat. He knows they do not kill for sport. He forces his muscles to relax and makes his way back to the road. He hears raptors noisily exchanging information, so not hunting. But, not leaving either.

“Hey, Tim.” Owen says. Silence falls behind him.

“Here.”

“Just saw two baby raptors and an adult. 

“S’that them talking about you?”

Owen grins. “Probably.”

“Stay sharp.”

“Yeah. If you hear them eating me, come get me. I’m starting back towards you.”

“Got that.”

Owen clips the radio on his belt, walking slightly faster than he walked in. He hears the leaves shudder around him. Blue’s nose emerges from the tangle of leaves and she snorts. Owen stops. She is exactly as he left her six months ago. Relief and pleasure flood through him. “Hey, baby.”

Blue trumpets her delight and dances out of the jungle. Bounding up to Owen, she bows playfully before giving him a thorough once over of snuffling and nudging. He runs a hand up her nose, something inside of him settling. Between Blue’s huffing down his neck and the clatter of guttural exclamation, Owen doesn’t hear the other raptors. When he looks up into four sets of very sharp eyes and teeth, he sucks in air. Blue stomps her foot at the others. They move away, attentive. He searches for Delta, but she isn’t there. Blue’s clicking lowers to a near purr. She pushes Owen with her nose.

“What?” He laughs. “It’s good to see you, too.” He can’t resist running a hand over her shoulder and down her back. There are new scars on her neck, well healed. She’s slightly heavier, must be eating well. Her eyes flash over him, bright and happy. “You better get along.” He says. “I’ll be back again to check on you.” As much as he’d love having her company on the way back to the power plant, she’s got a life here. That’s what he wanted to see and touch. He whistles softly. Blue cocks her head, gives him another shove. She trumpets her satisfaction and wheels off toward the center of the island. The other four raptors trot off in her wake.

When relative quiet settles around him again, Owen checks in with Tim. Lowery agrees leaving the second beacon on the roof of the power station is acceptable. The joy bubbling along his nerves make the return trek feel brief. The rest of his team is back on the boat, and Owen arrives on the beach a half hour behind them.

Claire is all smiles on deck. “Lowery deployed the drone. Wait until you see.” She tugs at his arm, a welcoming kiss glancing off the corner of his mouth. 

The aerial view on the tablet Lowery hands Owen is crystal clear. Lowery fiddles with another tablet, steering the drone lower over the canopy of trees. Owen has a sense of vertigo as the view tilts quickly. When he adjusts to the speed and altitude, he can make out the T-rex pair below. “Huh.” He grunts. “Move over there.” He points on the tablet.

“Yeah.” Lowery chuckles. “No idea what you’re pointing at.” 

Owen adjusts again. “Um, drive it north. Up that slope. There they are.” A group of raptors rest in the shade of an outcrop of rocks. Owen counts three adults, six youngsters including Blue and Delta, and four babies. The alpha female is significantly larger than the other animals. “The babies, or at least one of them, has feathers.” Owen comments. 

“Really?” Barry asks. “Do you think the trait was recessively still there? Hey, Lowery, can you get that thing closer?”

“Enough to see feathers, no.” Lowery says. “I mean yes, but, one of the adults would probably swat it out of the air. So, no.” He taps on the tablet and steers the drone further into the center of the island with deep satisfaction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience. Please leave comments and thoughts. xo

**Author's Note:**

> I pretty much live for comments and kudos. Suggestions always welcome. Do be kind.


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